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Jan 14 1989 Em 





Issue 10 ° 





Commodore surprises with new offers! - page 2 


WE ARE THE 


CHAMPIONS? th ciis 
www - risimas 
The peculiar tale of EE yan Wolf, 


Kenny Dalgish and |) Aterbumer, Thunderlade, Mif x [A 
snos | | the Lirerpoollicenoes -nsz R-Type and Batman ENS pe 


Charts 3° Letters 12 ° Sugar 19 Entertainment 24 « New games 26 e Tips 30 « Vouchers 33 ° Beginners 35 « Columns 36 e PSsst! 46 




















NEWS 2 ers 





Sizzling coin-op 
batch up for 
grabs 





* Shinobi: Hot property 


A job lot of "top notch" coin-op licences 
are currently up for grabs for the soft- 
ware house willing to spend an esti- 
mated £500,000. 

French software publisher FIL last 
month went into receivership with the 
rights to eight Japanese coin-ops in its 
possession. Its UK agent The Sales 
Curve is currently negotiating with 
various software houses one of which 
is believed to be Virgin/Mastertronic. 

Heading the arcade games is beat- 
em-up Shinobi as well as driving game 
Continental Circus and Ninja Warrior. 





One envious software publisher 
described the floating games as 
"bloody good stuff". 


The games were to appear under the 
Rebel label. Indeed, it is thought that if 
a company such as Virgin/Mastertronic 
were to buy the games it would be 
adding a whole new label to its stable. 

Virgin/Mastertronic though is deny- 
ing any interest in the titles. "We're not 
Chasing them," said a spokesman. 
"We're very selective about the the 
coin-ops we publish, such as Double 
Dragon." 

Whatever the outcome of the negoti- 






An extraordinary sequence of 
events and misunderstandings has 
meant that gamers can expect not 
one, but two Liverpool computer 
games this year - as well as a fur- 
ther two featuring Liverpool play- 
ers. 

Grandslam announced that it had 
secured the official Liverpool licence 
late last year and that a game 
would be appearing "some time in 
'89". However, a small company 
called Video Images last week 
claimed that it had secured the Liv- 
erpool licence and that a budget 
game would be appearing by East- 
er 

It would appear though that Liver- 
pool has managed to secure licence 
fees for two games: Grand Slam has 
the rights on the team whilst Video 
Images has the whole football club. 


Liverpool foul up baffles publishers 


To confuse matters further Liver- 
pool manager Kenny Dalglish — who 
personally endorsed Grand Slam's 
game recently — is already featured 
on a game by Newcastle based Zep- 
pelin. And Kop hero Peter Beardsley 
is also featured in a game - by 
Grandslam. 

"When I saw that Grandslam had 
the licence I was really worried 
because we already had approval," 
said Video Images Dave Colley. "But 
weve got the club but not the 
team." In effect this means that 
Video Images can't use the players 
to promote the game in the same 
way that Grandslam can. 

Speaking from Las Vegas, Grand- 
slam's boss Stephen Hall told 
Express: "Theres obviously been 
some confusion but I have to stress 
that theres no animosity at all. I 


* Dalglish: Three game confusion 


hope that we can settle this in a 
mature fashion. Im certainly not 
going crazy and spitting blood." 








Two new Amiga games packs due this month 


THANKS A BUNDLE 


COMMODORE! 


Commodore will be selling the 


Amiga 500 bundled with free 


games from the end of this month. 
In effect, it will mean that Com- 


Better Dead than Alien 
(both Entertainment Inter- 
national), International 
Soccer (Microdeal), Winter 


ations, gamers can look forward to the 
first titles arriving within the next few 
months. Despite FIL's difficulties, pro- 
gramming and development has gone 
on undisturbed. "We'll still have three 
games out in the first quarter of this 
year," explained The Sales Curve's boss 
Jane Cavanagh. "And then there'll be 
another two to follow in the spring." 


modore has at last responded to the | 
extraordinary success Atari has had 

with bundling games for its own 16- | 
bit machine, the ST. 

Two separate offers are involved. 
The first includes nine free games as | 
well as the standard modulator at | 
the normal Amiga price of £399. The 
titles are Bubble Ghost (Infogrames), 
Hellbent (Novagen), Quadralian and 
Stargoose (both Logotron), Atak and 


The day Nintendo came to town. 


This week's Consumer Elec- 
tronics Show in Las Vegas 
only went to prove what we 
already know — that Ninten- 
do stil wields absolute 
power in the big money US 
leisure market. 

















seemed subdued, as if that 
firm had realised that any 
attempts to emulate Ninten- 
do would necessarily fall 
Short. "Theres a real buzz 
with Nintendo, it's absolute- 
ly huge,” offered one ani- 


All this rather overshad- 
owed the CES debut of 
Epyx, MicroProse, Media 
genic, Taito and UK hopeful 
Elite. 

But all can take heart that 
the stand fees and flight 
























The firms enormous mated observer. ‘Sega's costs and hotel bills will 
stand dominated the stand is dwarfed and really have been well spent. Busi- | 
packed hal with grateful fairly quiet." nessmen from every corner 






In the bars and casinos 
talk was mainly of Ninten- 
dos forthcoming clash with 
Atari Games. Should the lat 
ter win, everybody agreed, 
the lucrative console scene 
will be changed forever. 


licensees snuggling up to 
the Japanese giant. They 
occupied their own few 
yards of the Nintendo vil- 
lage and jealously paraded 
their newest games. 

In contrast, Sega's stand 


of the US and from every 
country on earth descended 
on Las Vegas for the event, 
which is vastly bigger than 
the PC show. The town has 
276 hotels. Last weekend 
there wasn't a vacant room. 






















Olympiad (Tynesoft) and 
Spitting Image (Domark). 
The second is more likely 
to appeal to experienced 
computer users. Costing 
£550 it features an Amiga 
500 upgraded to one 1Mb 
with a copy of the six disk 
epic game Dragon's Lair. 
The upgrade would nor- 
mally cost £150 so effec- 
tively buyers are getting 
Dragon's Lair for free. That 
can only be played on an 
upgraded Amiga and 
would normally cost £50 
anyway. Commodore will 
be the only company offi- 
cially allowed to sell the 
game in this country for 
the next three months. 
Those who opt for the 
the second bundle will also 
be able to play the increas- 
ing number of 1Mg games 
which are being imported 
from the US, including the 
likes of Dungeon Master. 
Although this 





* Amiga: Two bundles due 








A2000 next for bundle 


treatment? 


Behind all the excitement 


A500, favouring a special 
A2000 assault which will 
include an impressive 
bundle of business soft- 
ware coupled with a price 
rise. Top brass at Com- 
modore are known to 
believe the machine to 
be underpriced at its pre- 





represents 
modore's first foray into games bun- 


sent tag of £1,495. 
One insider — told | 
Express: "Corporate buy- 


ers are reluctant to 
believe that the A2000 is 
a worthwhile machine 
and better than those 
which which are two or 
three times the price, 
Once the doors have 
been opened though they 
say that it's phenomenal. 
There is a school of 
thought which says that 
the price should go up 
with extra software 
added.” 








Com- distributor SDL (Express 8). 
Commodore is preferring not to 


dles with the Amiga it is not the only | comment on the matter although an 


one on offer. Dealers are already sell- 


ing a ten game pack put together by | the week. 


announcement is expected within 





2+ NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS « 14 JANUARY 1989 
























* Operation Wolf: 1988's winner 
Ocean's Operation Wolf has landed 


the gaming industry's biggest 
prize: the Christmas number one. 
The company all but dominated 
1988's most important chart by also 
taking the second spot with Robo 
cop as well as having six other titles 
placed in the Top Twenty. Robocop 
might well have surprised everybody 








Japanese console giant 
Nintendo has tumed its 
legal artillery on Atari 
Games following the lat- 
ters $100 million lawsuit 


unfairly, Its 
own 


pleased. 
of three 
(Express 8). 

Nintendo's games con- 
sole has established itself 
as the leading toy in the 
US but Nintendo has 
alway kept a tight grip on 
software written for the 
machine. Licensees have 
to pay to produce games. 

Atari Games rebelled 
against this at the end of 
last year and launched a 
legal attack on the 
Japanese, along with 
accusations of Nintendo 
monopolising the market 


weeks ago 


tract, unfair 


nizations Act. 


The firm say 
information 
tendo, Nintei 


ining Tengen’ 
see if they 


Tengen has produced its 
version of 
games. Nintendo is not 


Nintendo is accusing 
Tengen of breach of con- 


and activities which vio- 
late the Racketeer Influ- 
enced and Corrupt Orga- 


officially terminated the 
original licensing deal. 


gen has received vital 
whilst working with Nin- 


neers are currently exam- 


and taken the prize itself, had it been 
released on the ST and Amiga. 
According to Gallup it has been out- 
selling Op Wolf on all the 8-bit for- 
mats 

This is the first time in three years 
that US Gold hasn't been in the top 
slot. In 1986 it won with Gauntlet 
and again last year with Out Run. 
This time, the company had to make 
do with fifth place with Thun- 
derblade. 

"It's nice to win the top spot and it 
makes all the overtime worthwhile,” 
said Ocean's Tracey Crook. “But we 
didn't get any personal satisfaction 
out of kicking US Gold off the top." 

The other hot tip - Activision's 
Afterburner - came in fourth place 
with Melbourne House's Double 
Dragon proving to be the dark horse 
of the race with a creditable third 


subsidiary patents or copyrights. 
The firm is also promis- 
ing to put up a fight 
against Atari Games’ 
original lawsuit. 

“Having obtained the 
benefits of the licensing 
arrangements Tengen has 
announced that it will 
begin to independently 
manufacture and dis- 
tribute games for the Nin- 
tendo which it previously 
sold under license with 
Nintendo," said the firm's 
US senior vice president 
Howard Lincoln. Atari 
Games' original suit, he 
said was an "obvious ploy 
to divert attention from 
Tengen's plan to violate 
the licence agreement." 


the 


competition 


. It has also 


ys that Ten- 
and help 
ndos engi- 


's games to 
violate any 





ranking in the Gallup listings. 

As always compilations featured 
well with five in the Top Twenty - 
Giants (US Gold), In Crowd (Ocean), 
| Taito Coin-ops (Ocean), Game, Set 
and Match 2 (Ocean) and Supreme 
| Challenge (Beau Jolly), 


Activision bags 
Roger Rabbi 





* Roger Rabbit: All formats deal 


Stunning graphic extravaganza Who 
Framed Roger Rabbit has been scooped 
up by Activision and should be appear- 
ing on most major formats. 

The game - developed by Walt Dis- 
ney's software arm Buena Vista and 
based on the blockbusting movie - has 
already appeared here on the Amiga 
via supplier Gainstar. Activision stress- 
es that it has the "official rights". 

It should be launching the Amiga 
version later this month at £24.95 with 
| | other versions set to follow later in the 
year. 








GAMES T 





14 


12 
13 








| ST gallery 


IB Atari ST specialist Electric Distribution is to 
I] launch a pair of clip-art packages - pictures 


which can be ported onto documents. 
| 


ScanArt costs £40 and features 100 "pro- 
fessionally drawn and useful” pictures. 
DrawArt is £10 more expensive and sports 
150 pictures. This, says the firm, has more 
unusual illustrations. 








Not for the first time industry 
pundits have heralded the end of 
the damaging  D-Ram chip 
drought which has beset the 
world's hardware manufacturers 
for more than a year. 

Leading analysts Dataquest and 
Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW) 
were last week forecasting cheaper 
chips and more of them for 1989. 
The possibility of PC prices coming 
down as a result has been aired, 
although this seems unlikely. 







* D-Ram: Rosier future predicted 





Chip drought: end in sight 


The chip drought was blamed 
mainly on Japanese microchip man- 
ufacturers concentrating on the 
more profitable 1 Megabyte chips 
at the expense of the popular 256 
Kilobyte versions. This occurred in 
the wake of US/Japanese trade ruc- 
tions. This has caused companies 
such as Amstrad and Atari to raise 
prices or announce shipment 
delays in the past. 

A readjustment to the new tech- 
nology and reorganisation on the 
part of the Japanese has given rise 
to the latest optimism. American 
companies are desperately trying 
to regain a footing in the chip mar- 
ket but are still lagging behind. 

The drought is nothing new to 
the market. For the past 30 years 
companies have jolted from severe 
shortages and high prices to great 
numbers of cheap chips. Optimists 


havent ruled out a continuation ot 
this trend but signs of a smoothing 
out are being cited. 

Dataquest's chip expert Jim Bev- 
eridge said in his 1989 forecast that 
there would be "some correction to 
the old syndrome" because chip 
makers and computer companies 
are becoming more organised with 
their inventories. 

"The Japanese moving up the 
technical spectrum has caused a 
shortage,” said a BZW spokesman 
to Express. "But there is now a bet- 
ter yield on popular chips. The 
problem is that the market is tech- 
nology driven and you have to 
move on to new projects very 
quickly" Stability would be the 
result of a settling of the 1 
Megabyte craze, he said. 

He predicted that whilst it was 
possible that an easing of the chip 
crisis might mean PC prices slip- 
ping there were other factors 
which might prompt such a trend. 








ES TOP TEN 

































Operation Wolf 
Spee, 064, CPC, ST Amiga 


Robocop 
Spectum, 054, CPC 


oem 


MELBOURNE HOUSE 


Double Dragon 
Spectrum, 064, ST, Amiga 


‘Afterburner 
Spectrum, 064, CPC, ST 


Thunder Blade 
Spectrum, C64, CPC, ST, Amiga 


ACTION 
oao 


Giants 
Spec. 064, CPC 


Falcon 
ST Amiga 


R-Type 
Spectrum, C64, CPC, ST 


Football Manager 2 
Spectum, C64, CPC, ST Amiga, PC, 


uso 


MERORSOFT 


ELECTRC OREMUS 


mocme 


In Crowd 


oc 
Spectrum, C64, CPC 

Batman Occ 
Spectum, 064, CPC, ST Amiga 

Tailo Coin-ops XN 
Spectrum, C64, CPC. 

Game Set and Match 2 oew 
Spectrum, C64, CPC 

Last Ninja 2 SYSTEMS 
Spectum, C84, CPC 

Heroes of the Lance [50] 
Spectrum, C64, CPC, ST, Amga 

Pacmania GO SUM 
Spec. 064, CPC, ST Amiga, MSX 

Return Of The Jedi ow 
Spectrum, 064, CPC, ST, Amga 

Rambo 3 (CON 
Spec, C64, CPC, ST 

Supreme Challenge. ewou 
Spectrum, 64, CPC 

Daley Thompson's Olym. Chall. — ocow 


Spee, 064, CPC, ST, Amiga 
BUDGET 
Joe Blade 2 PERS 
Spectrum, Có4, CPC, ST, BBC, C16 Electron 


Ghostbusters 
Spectrum, C64, CPC, Atari &-bit, MSX 


Bomb Jack 
Spectrum, 054, CPC, ST Amiga, C16 


Through the Trap Door 
Spectrum, C64, CPC 


Back to Skool 

Spec 

Commando 

Spectum, 064, CPC, BBC, C16, Electron 


Footballer Of The Year w 
Spec, C64, CPC, Elec, BBC, Atari bi, C16, MSX 


Skooldaze 
Spectrum, C64 


End zone 
Spectrum, C64, CPC 


Yabba Dabba Doo 
Spectum, C64, CPC 


















MISTERTRONC 


ENCORE 


ATERWINE 


TERMINE 


NORE 


ATENTE 


ATENE 








NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 © 3 








B CLIK CHRISTMAS PACK 1 . .£395.00 
G [ l] te AMIGA SPECIALISTS CLIK CHRISTMAS PACK II . .£410.00 


Animator Images. Aegis 10550 
Ans Parts 1 Electronic Ars... 999 1... 30 
Anh Melbourne House... 195 SL Em ES An Paris 2 Elccironic Ans 9.99 730 
Adventure Con Set. Electronic Ars QM UA dm Audio Master Aegis 46.00 
‘Alien Syndrome Sofik —— : Award Maker 3999 
pei ia pss Tanglewood Microdeal ‘Antec C Professional Manx 19999 713 
AH Ree WEE Temple of Apshai US: Gold BBSPC Coms Pack 11999 77.8930 
Anand Deer Tempods Psygnosis Bücher Il Eagle Tree 29.99 2180 
‘Acnagedon eat Marek etraguest Microdeal C. Library Benchmark... 79.99 1 60.30 
ARP oL. as Tenir us em s Calligrapher Interactive... 8999 07230 
‘Around the World in 80 Days Pandora LES. pee CLI. Mate PSS, 39.99 .....29.50 
Artic Fox Electronic Aris Bl = Comic Sener $999 5050 
Bad Cat Rainbow Arts Time and Magic vel 9 Comic Senier Librarys (each) 2499 7 1880 
Balance of Power Mincovtt Time Bandis Micros Cries Choice 14999 10800 
Batain Palace. Tracers Microillusions Data Retrive 5799 2.4250 
Bards Tale 1 Ee m? br Ultima m Origin Deluxe Music Con Set Electronic Aris 69.99 2.50.30 
Bards Tale I Enak An S 1730 Utims V igin Deluxe Paint 11 Electronic Arts .. 69.99 ©. 500 
Batleships Elie no || ums Mindscape Diuxe Photolab Electronic Ans 69.99 5030 
Bermuda Project Mirrorsoft 1630 w Masenmonics Deluxe Prin Electronic Arts... 2499 ....... 18.30 
Better Dead Than Alien Elektra 13.50 ee Fock Deluxe Productions Electronic Arts 139.99... 1500 
Beyond the Ice Palace Eli b 1630 ve Topáown Deluxe Video Electronic Ars .. 6999 `... $0.80 
Bionic Commando US. Gold à 1930 Warzone Pim Devpak Assembler Hisoft 5999 77,4530 
Black Lamp Firebird 1350 NIE Peu Diga Aegis 5199 A280 
Blackjack Academy Microillusions 1650 bea Daa Digicalc Digia 8999 69.50 
Bomb Jack Elie 1650 Vi: Infocom Digpaint Newtek $9.99 7, 4230 
pop eri na World Dans y Mosen Digiview 30 Newek 149.99 771000 
Bubble Ghost Ere In 1330 orld Tour Bectronic Ans —— 2495 Digivicw Adapter Newick 2250 777. 1950 
Buggy Boy Elite u 1650 felboume House Digi Newiek 5999 17:080 
fond re 1930 Discovery Digivicw Stand Newek 5999 00003050 
‘Carrier Command. Rambid 1650 Hewson Director The Right Answer $9.99 45.50 
Champioeahip Gott 13 TEYOU DONT SEE II ON THELIST THES PLEASE ASh Dos 2 Dos Central Coast 39.99 29.50 
Cheese: 5000 - 1750 WEE ANE LISI EVERY THING VV MIL MILI Excellence. Microsystems 228.99 7. 12500 
Chubby Gristle j 1330 Express Paint PAR. 6999 `... 5030 
City Defence 1025 NEW RELEASES Nt Face It 2999 2130 
Corruption Rainbird 1650 Fantavision Biondeibund .... 39.99 1.2930 
Crack Tine! 1530 Forms In Flight $999 8030 
‘Craps Academy Microiliusions 1630 HOUSE SS POUR PRE Foturcsound Applied Visions... Phone for prices 
Crash Garett Infogrammes 16.50 Goldspell 2 3699 ....... 2150 
D.Thomps Olympic Challange Ocean’ 1650 Hot Shot Gor 20 2999 2180 
Defender of tke Crown Mirrorsofi 1950 Netherworld Gabbi Discovery 2999 12150 
Deja Vu Mindscape 1930 Robeary Hot and Cool Jazz. Electronic Ans. 9.99 750 
Divison One Robik 1350 Altemate Reality Home Accounts Digia 2999 on 2.50 
Ebonstar Microillusions 16.50 aricid LFF. Library Benchmark. 7999 7... 6050 
Eco Ocean 2 1650 Wizard Wars Impact Aegis 6399 77:440 
Bf Tynesoii 1025 Chronoquest Instant Music Electronic Ans 29.99 7... 21.50 
Emerald Mines ‘Anco 13.50 Baitle Chess Interchange 4999 7:390 
Empire Ineresicl P 1730 T. Pursuit (New Beginning) locad PPS 5099 7742.50 
Empire Strikes Back Domark 1330 Basketball 2 K Spread 2 7995 7:60 50 
Enlightenment Firebird 19991350 Nebula K Seka Assembler Kuma 4999 7,3230 
Faery Tale Microil 3899 1... 3230 Rocket Ranger Kara Fonts Kara 5999 7.248 50 
Fran Form Electronic Ars .... 2495 .... 730 Ingrids Back Kind Words Disc Company 4999 7... 32.50 
Fire and Forge Titus 2499 771650 Impossible Mission if Lattice C $0 24999 145.00, 
Fireblaster Pism 399.200 Quaniox Light, Cameras, Action Aegis 57.99 39.50 
Firepower Microiliusions ..... 2499 — 1650 Spdenronic MCCC. Pascal Metacomo 8999 1... 09.30 
Fligh Sim Tt Sublogic 39.99. 2630 Football Dici i Macro Assembler Metacomco `... 0999 7,3030 
Football Manager I Addictive 1999 1350 Eddie Edwards Super Ski Mailshot Digua 4899... 39.80 
Formula One Grand Prix Microvalue 1499 7: 025 Mega Pack (6 in 1) 8, Marauder 1 Discovery 3099 7,2930 
Fortress Un Anco 1499 1025 Fernandez Must Dic Mixiplan A300 Oxi 9099 1772.50 
Fusion Electronic Avis»... 2495 17.80 Spaceracer Maviplan Plas Ovi 14999 7... 102.50 
Gamison 11 Rainbow Arts ..... 2499... 1930 Tracker 1 Microfiche Filer SV 7999 262.50 
Activision 1999 1330 Intemational Soccer Modula tt Benchmark... 13099 7... 102.50 
SSI 29.99 19.50 Driller Music Studio 3199 77.2480 
SCA 1495 1025 Nigel Mamelis Grand Prix On Line 1)046 99.50 
Mindscape 2499 1650 [3 i Organize 11 4999 7: 8050 
Ikari Wamtos. Elie 2499 1650  Ourun 1998 iaso Perfect Sound 7999 77... 0030 
Interceptor Electronic Af... 2498.17.50 Sorcerer Plus 9 1350 | Photon Paint 4999 2772: 80/80 
ridion King Soft 1999 1330 Cytemod i35 | Prae 4999 27 950 
Sublogi 3999 2650 Reach for the Siars 1730 | Power Wi 199 2227, 8080 
ls of Darkness Runbid 1999 1350 Super Six 4.99 ies) | Prim [o 59099 7,45 50 
Rainbow Aris 2... 2499... 1930 Zero Gravy 199 1350 Prolific 30500 7: 30500 
Kampfgruppe SSI. 2999 2280 Mara Whittakers Xmas Box 1499 1025 Prolific 31500 272 375.00 
King of Chicago Mirrorsofl 2999 19.50 Speedball 99 1650 4 Designer (HAW & S/W) Eldono uw 29.50 
Lancelot Level 9 1999 7 1380 Deleon $ w i830 || Pro Video CGI IDK i5999 2012750 
Lentherneck Microdeal 1999 1330 Crystal Hammer 1499 1025 | Pro Video CGI Fonts IDK. 69.99 1,8050 
Leathemecká Player Adapter — Microdeal 550.450 Way of ihe 149 1025 | Pro Video Plus IDK 249.99 L7 7800. 
Legend of The Sword Rind 24.09 1850 Pioneer 2499 1650 J Pro Video Plus Fonts IDK 9999 1.7200 
Major Motion Microdeal 1999 1350 Growth 1499 1025. | Professional P Gold Disc 4999 1, 12800. 
Marble Madness Etectrome 1995 1480 Aim 1499 2s | Project D 3099 7, 29.50 
Mean 1% Accolade 2495 17:50 Autode 2499 1650 | Publisher Pus Nonh East 99,30 1005.72.50 
Menace Pyysnous 19991330 Joe Blade i 1999 1330 
Abstract 2499 1650 Captain Blood 2499 1650 
Moon Mist Infocom 2099 1950 Specdhall 19 ey HARDWARE LIST AS FROM THE IST OCTOWER 1988 
Lencore 2499 1650 tum of the Jedi 1999 $$ —  — Bü — M 
Motorbike Madness sygna 1499 1025 Galactic Conqueror uo 1630 SSP. RPR 
Obliterator Psysnons 2499 1630. Bombuzal An rc] 
Off Shore Warrior Ti 2499 1650 Thunderblade 19 Jes | A500 Computer (Built-in Disk 3 1/2" Disk Drive AMIGA DOS Kickstart 
Othello Robik 399.550 Mini Golf 1999 183) [| Workbench 1.2. The very fimi) 399.99 ...... 35000 
POW Actionware 2999 1930 Eme » Tes || ASDO CAS above) with 1084 Colour Monitor... 699.00 -s 620.00 
Pandora Firebird 1999 1350 Helle = ASO Business Pack MONS 75000 
Passengers of The Wind Glenet 2499 — 1650 UMS n» iaso | A300. 1084 Colour Monitor and AFRO 705.99 665.00 
Phalant i rae 1429 1023 [IET re TE AFRNO (O/OIT Switch thru Por) Disk Drive ss 11000 2.95.50 
Phantasie Ul SSI 2499 — 19.50 RAC Lombard Rally n» laso | MPSI200C Disk Drive 140.99 12550 
Pinball Wizard Kingsi 399.700 Turbo Cup 1» iso | 1084 Colour Monitor 349.99 39000. 
Platoo Ocean 2499 i650 Arkanoid 11 2499 1630 | 1084 Colour Monitor & T-V. Tu 30599 ..... 287000 
Plundered Heart Infocom 2999 — 1750 Computer His tt 1999 1330 T.V. Tuner 9999 .... 91.80 
Pool Mastrttonc 399.700 Fish %9 laso | Comana Amiga Drive Cax 333 9999 7... 9150 
Poris of Call Aegis 3999 32550 Homagss 9 les | Cimans Amiga Drive Inc P.S.U. Cas 354 15099 712800. 
Powerplay Arcana 1999 — 1350 Warlock Quest 1999 1330 Amiga Genlock (A500) 39999 2000 
Protector Pm 9.99 — 70 Spttung Image 1999 1330 | RE302C Slimline Amiga 20d Drive 105.99 2. 98.50. 
Quadralien Logotron 16.50 Stdearms 1999 1330 ASOI V/2MG Ram Upgrade 17599 15000. 
Red October Argus Press 1650 Operation Wal 249 1650 
Return 10 All Electronic Ars 1750 Circus Games. 3499 1650 A2000 (B) 148925 ..... 1278.00 
pees Pe p [p 4 De A2000 (B) with 1084 Colour Monitor 1782/50 1439.00 
Revenge i pears 20 E] 1999 1350 A2USK (Mb Ram Board. Populated with 2Mb) 74638... 62000 
Rockford Melbourne House 1350 20,000 Leagues Under the Sca. 1999 1330 1607.20 55800 
Rolling Thunder US. Gold. 2 1950 Hotshot 24.99 1650 2 Ia 35 99500 
"Romantic Encounters Microillusions ......2 1630 Double Dragon 1330 A202 20Mb MSDOS Hard Di 402.30 ..... 37500 
SDI Minderat E 1950 President ie Miiing t ted A2300 Internal A2000 Genlock 286.35 ` 28000 
Sacrophaser Players 1025 Maria Whittakers Xmas Box 1025 A2010 Irena 3 Y 1825... 159.00 
Sargon Itl Sublogic 1350 Manhattan Dealers 1650 
Scenery Disc t Sublopc 1350 Archon Collection. 1730 
Scenery Disc 7 Sublopic 1350 Hellfire Atack 1450 
Scenery Disc Eu Sublogic 1:50 43 4 OI Road Racing 1950 x 6475 sn 701.00 
Scenery Disc Japan Sublogic 1330 195615 175500 
por propos DS 14* Cowon Hi Res Colour Monitor 747.50 -n 650.00 
ferar d n3 20" Cotton Hi Res Colour Mon 2070.00 1879.00 
Seven Cities of Gold Electronic Anis 1025 Rockey Robick Cherry Pad A3 Digitsing Tubi 43250 nn 565.00 
Shadowy : UE en On eek Video Driver Card (Must be sold with coirn) -s 396.78 
Sidewinder 700 Silicon Dreams Ranbrd 
Sinbad and The Throne of Falcon. Mindscape x 19.50 Sly Microdcal 42000 SPECIAL OFFER OVILST STOURS LAST 
Skychase Imageworks 1350 Robick z 
kyfox I 1750 Strange New World Timewarp A2000B Computer with 1084 Colour Monitor and A2090/2092 20MB 
Space Quest 1950 Tass Times Activision Amiga Hard Disk 
Space Station 700 Temamex GSE 
Star Glider 2 Rainbird 1650 Tetris Mirrrsoft 
Star Wars Domark 3 Thunder 
Starfleet 1 Tuer be] Tewa” Disk Box (Holds 50 Disks) 1050 
Disk Box (Holds 100 Disks) 1350 


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VOUCHERS 








THIS WEEK 


NEWS 











|» Polar Expedition: Real life computer-controlled pictures 












expedition to the North Pole. 


World famous handheld computer 
company Psion is working on plans 
for a laptop machine designed to 
operate for longer on a set of batter- 
ies than any rival. 

The firm is saying nothing about 
the project but it emerged last week 
that the machine is planned for 
launch in the autumn — around the 
time of the PC Show. And given the 
company's track record the price is 
























Q. Who's famous 


for shouting Eureka? 
Archimedes users are often fondly regard. 
ed as the boffins of the computer users 
world - so Moray Micro has come up with 
a program to test their mettle. 
Arctrivia contains more than 7,500 ques: 
tions and costs £24.95. " imple enough 
to use but the questions can be difficult," 
said Moray director Dennis Scott. More 
info on 05427 377 


Computing: 


fessor at London University, 
says boys dominate com- 

puters in schools with girls 
being left behind. In the 













The first interactive videodisc released by Virgin offers students 
the chance to take part in a uniquely-realistic simulation of an 


North Polar Expedition runs on the BBC Domesday laser disk 
system which is installed in more than 2,000 UK schools and 
consists of a laser disk drive hooked up to a BBC micro and 


monitor (MS-DOS and RMLL versions are to follow). The pack- 
age allows five users operating as a team to follow in the foot- 
steps of Arctic explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. 

The students are offered puzzles and questions as they travel 









"It is difficult to avoid the 
disturbing conclusion that 
girls are learning less than 
boys about computers," she 





dition. 


PSION PLANS LONGER 


likely to be within reach of the mass 
market. 

Although the machine has been 
under development for a year now it 
stil has not been given a name 
Psion engineers and technicians are 
still only calling it "the laptop". 

But an informed source told 
Express the laptop will probably 
utilise data storage technology simi- 
lar to the Psion Organiser handheld 
that of insertible EPROM cartridges 
as opposed to floppy disks. 

There is already a base of such 
software ranging in price from £12 to 
£100 depending on storage capacity 
and applications 

The ability for the laptop to be able 
to communicate with PCs is also 
being given a high priority. 

Just before Christmas Psion bought 
up Milton Keynes-based modem 
company Dacom for ‘an initial con- 
sideration’ of £4.5 million. 'I think it's 
fair to assume that Psion is very 
interested in the communications 
market," said the source 


Girls are losing out when it book she says boys are says. Recommendations games with a boy at the 

comes to learning on com- more likely to opt for com- include using computers for keyboard, talking to his 

puters, according toa book puters as a subject in itself all subjects rather than just dad. As long as this male 

published this week. (being more likely to have for computing. orientated approach exists 
Celia Hoyle, a maths pro- computers at home). Also in the book Lynda girls will be put off." 


It's a man's man's world 


Carr comments: "Comput- 
ers are still promoted for 
men. Even at Christmas we 
saw adverts for computer 


Computer users head for the icy wastes 


across the polar ice. And from time to time they come up 
against perils generated at random such as polar bears and 
crevices. According to the progress they make the monitor dis- 
plays ‘extraordinary’ film and slide footage of the original expe- 


Despite its sophistication, at £199 North Polar Expedition 
should be affordable for most schools. "It will help teach people 
Geography, which education has had some trouble with," said 
Virgin's William Beckett. "It also offers people the ability to use 
inter-personal skills." 


* Organiser: Laptop sister by autumn 


He added: '"Psions engineering 
strengths are in the ability to offer 
little power consumption with a 
large amount of storage.” 

He said the laptop will use six bat- 
teries and that whereas most laptops 
exhausted a set of batteries within 
about four hours, the new machine 
would offer up to a week of continu 
ous use. 


Girls and Computers costs 
£5.50 from the Institute of 
Education. 20, Bedford Way, 
London, WC1H OA1 


War breaks out 


over war game 


Highly regarded strategy war game 
UMS (Universal Military Simulator) has 
become the focal point for yet another 
inter-company battle. 

The game is sourced from Iowa-based 
Intergalactic Development but is pub- 
lished by Rainbird. However, the follow 
up, UMS II, is to be sold around the 
world by Birmingham-based US Gold. 

Intergalactic says that Rainbird han- 
dled the original UMS poorly. Rainbird 
has retorted that the American firm is 
sore because it rejected the sequel. 

"We decided that we just couldn't 
afford to do business with Rainbird any 
more ~ it was costing us so much in 
lawyers and accountants to get them to 
pay bills," said Intergalactic president 
Esra Sidran. "They did a good job but at 
what cost? They do very bad business." 

Rainbird swiftly responded to the 
harsh criticism: "I'm surprised he's said 
this about us because he's always been 
such a nice guy," said the firm's Julia 












=) we rejected the game. It's not up to the 






Coombes. "Perhaps he's just upset that 


standard of something we'd want to 
publish." 

Either way, US Gold will be launching 
the game in the summer on ST, Amiga, 
PC, C64 and Mac. Prices have not been 
confirmed. 


UMS 


"THE UNIVERSA] 
MILITARY SIMULATOR 


* UMS: Battleground 








Midget with 
more muscle 


Fledgling PC manufacturer ACPM has 
upgraded its 'Micro Midget machine to 
include a 20Mb hard disk drive, 

The new Micro Midget XX will cost 
£1,099 as opposed to the original XT 
which still retails at £595. ACPM is 
also offering a £449 disk drive upgrade 
kit for the 1,000 or so existing users. A 
40Mb version is also planned for later 
this winter. 

The Micro Midget is so called 
because of its small desktop footprint: 
10" by 10". This, claims the firm, is a 
factor more and more companies are 
taking into account. 

















NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS © 14 JANUARY 1989 * 5 














> } 


foem 


Ocean Software has puled off a 
remarkable coup in snatching the top 
two spots in the lucrative Christmas 
games software chart. 

And although many in the leisure 
computing industry are green with 
envy, the majority would admit the 
Manchester crowd - recently voted 
software house of the year - fully 
deserve its Gallup victory. 

US Gold's massive victory the previ- 
ous year with dubious versions of Out 
Run was widely seen as a triumph of 
marketing clout over program quality. 

So it's something of a relief that this 
time the top spots went to titles worthy 
of the honour. Operation Wolf the num- 
ber 1 is a fine arcade conversion, and 
tunner up Robocop is not far short of 
brilliant. 

Evidently Ocean meant what it said a 
year ago when it proclaimed a new 
commitment to program quality. 

Well done, boys. You delivered. 








OUR OPINION 








Football mad D&H 
changes tactics 


Soccer crazy games firm D&H is plan- 
ning to field yet another line up of 
footie titles - but it admits that it may 
soon have to change its game plan. 

With the range of possible untried 
football games fast running out, the 
firm is planning to bring on a new 
line-up of strategy games from other 
sports such as horse racing, motor 
racing, cricket, snooker and boxing. 

D&H has built itself on the Football 
Director series plus titles like Inter- 
national Manager and Two Player 
Super League. New titles in the tun- 
nel include a budget trio of Soccer Q, 
Cup Football and Euro Super Cup. 

"I suppose we'll run out of football 
ideas in the end," said joint boss Tony 
Huggard. "But for the moment we're 
planning another Football Director 
with graphic players which respond 
to their own special skills." 

New games such as The National, 
Grand Prix Manager, Snooker Manag- 
er, Boxing Manager II and Cricket 
Captain should be arriving over the 
next few months on all formats. 





Worlock + News corto Colin Campbell + Reviews 
EDITOR Andy Storer + STAFF WRITER Rik Haynes « PRO- 
DUCTION EDITOR Rod Lawton + ARr EDITOR Julia 
O'Shea ant Assistant Harriet Athay » ADVERTISE: 
MENT MANAGER Mark Salmon + 10 executives Jennie. 
Evans, Andy Smith * ao TyPeseTTING Terry Tumer 
* PUBLISHER Greg Ingham 


© Future Publishing Ltd - 4 Queen St, Bath, 
BAt 1EJ » Tel: 0225 446034 - Fax: 0225 446019 











PC monitors going cheapie] 


Growing competition in the market for high-resolution PC graphics has 
led to aggressive price cutting from one of the big players. 

Citizen Europe has lowered the price of its CCM-104 high end colour 
monitor from £795 to £640 making it "approximately half the price of 


the comparable IBM monitor". The unit is capable of an enhanced VGA 
resolution of 1024 x 768. 

It is expected to appeal particularly to PS/2 system users, although to 
make full use of the monitor's resolution they will require IBM's optional 
8514/A board. 

Owners of other PCs can obtain the same resolution by buying Citi- 
zen's PCG 1000 graphics display board. The price on this has been cut 
to £380. 


MICROPROSE CHASES 
UK SOFTWARE RICHES 


Ambitious 
MicroProse 


us 
has 


software house, 
swooped into 


The simulation specialist intends 
taking shoot-em-ups and strategy 
games back across the Atlantic. A 
deal has been signed with Oxford- 
shire based Hewson — and talks are 
also under way with 
French publisher 
Loriciel and another 
unnamed UK software 
house. 

Publishers who strike 
a deal with Micro- 
Prose will have their 
products sold under a 
new label in the US 
called Medallist. Hew- 
sons first three 
games to go Stateside 


Europe to sign up "the very best" 
arcade games for the ever hungry 
American market. 





will be Eliminator, 
Netherworld and | 
Exelon. 


"We're real excited 
about this, enthused 
MicroProse president | 
Bill ^ Stealey — to| 
Express. "Weve done | 
a big survey here (in 
America) and the 
hard core simulation 
people only account 
for about 25 per cent 
of gamers. We want | 
B to get to the hard core 

arcade people as well. | 










* Stealey: Euro swoop 


Battle of th 








ts 





















Ive already said that we 
being a $100 million company." 

Hewsons boss Andrew Hewson 
told Express: "If the world suddenly 
didn't want to play simulations then A 
MicroProse would have a problem. I 
was looking for an American partner 
and they are ideal." 


SHOWTIME FREEBIES 


High profile business software publisher 
Ashton-Tate is going to be doling out 
£12,000 worth of free software at the 
Which Computer? show next month. 

A prize draw will be held at the end of 
each day of the exhibition held at the 
NEC in Birmingham. Winners will be 
going home with the likes of dBase IV, 
FullWrite Professional and Framework 
Ill. Which? will be held from 21st to 
24th February. 


intend 


MICRO-BOOM 
Between 1983 and 1987 the pro- 
portion of manufacturing compa 
nies using computers rose from 42 
to 72 per cent according to a gov- 
ernment report on Britain published 
last week. 








EDITOR Rob Ainsley + CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Peler 





| Amiga owners looking to 
| improve on the Basic sup- 
| plied with their machine are 
| spoilt for choice with the 
| launch of two new packages. 
Cornwall based Microdeal 





has brought out the £64.95 
GFA Basic which was for- 
merly on the ST; and HiSoft 
has dealt out its own Hisoft 
Basic priced at £79.95. 

Not surprisingly both firms 


claim their package is the 
better. Microdeal is citing its 
success with the ST version 
with claimed sales of 70,000. 
HiSoft is pointing out that its 
package is a compiler rather 
than an interpreter and is 
compatible with AmigaBa- 
sic. Indeed the first 1,000 
copies are being bundled 
with a free programming 
guide to AmigaBasic. 





"Despite problems in the 
past Basic is still the best 
language to learn on and you 
can use that experience with 
other languages," said 
HiSofts Andy Pennell. 

"Now that the Amiga mar- 
ket has grown so much I 
dont see any reason why 
GFA shouldnt do as well as 
it did on the ST," was the 
Microdeal line. 





dition 


Special united 


1 
= [—— a 
* HiSoft Basic: Sparring with GFA 


HOSH 





6 + NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS © 14 JANUARY 1989 






EXCEPTIONAL 
GRAPHICS 
* Gameplay 





"Distributed in collaboration with MIRRORSOFT" 


ot 


pee 

€ £55. 

Sales Department, Unit 1, Rear of 7 Wellington Road, XP eoo 
Sandhurst, Surrey GU17 8AW Tel: 0252 877431 you 


MARBLE MADNESS. £24.95 
Electronic Arts. 


TEST DRIVE. £24.95 
Electronic Arts. 


ROADWARS. £19.95 
Melbourne House. 





CHOPPER X. £9.99 
Mastertronic. 


Here it is! The new Super Pack from Atari. 

You don't just get the brilliant 520STFM. 
We're giving you twenty-two great software 
titles that most people would gladly sell their 
grannies for. 


*Available from most Atari dealers. Offer ends March Ist 1989, 





XENON. £19.95 
Melbourne House. 


Elite. 


ARKANOID II. £19.95 WIZBALL. £19.95 
Imagine. Ocean. 





There's no catch. You really do get the 
520STFM and £450 worth of great software 
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So make sure you include yourself in this 
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. £399.99 inclusive. 


warr ORS. £14.95 RANARAMA. £19.95 THUNDERCATS. £19.95 QUADRALIEN. £19.95 STARQUAKE. £19.95 
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|. Please send me details of this and other Atari Products | 
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| | 














Atari Corp (UK) Ltd., Atari House, Railway Terrace, Slough, Berkshire SL2 5BZ 


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16 Bit Centre Telephone: 0423 526322 
Unit 17 

Lancashire Fittings Science Village 

Claro Road 


Harrogate E ACCEPT 
North Yorkshire EXPRESS 
HG1 4AP VOUCHERS 


16 BIT CENTRE 











uring my c 


ipped aliens, shot up space ship 
dragons, blc 


thing 


À enough to hai 
and love in the 
3 pacifi 


tin my 
around me 


ubstitute 


AMIGA PONDERER 

Lown a Commodore 64 and have some 
money in the bank. Before buying this great 
mag, | was planning to buy a disk drive but | 
saw that the Amiga was a good buy. Do you 
think | should buy the disk drive or save a bit 
more for the Amiga? 

Matthew Davies, Glynneath, West Glamorgan 


"M It depends on your precise needs, but 
you're probably better off saving for an 
Amiga. Disk drives for the 64 are notori- 
ously slow and there are some good deals 
going now on the Amiga (see news 
pages). 


BRING OUT SKELETONS 

| purchased a Commodore PC1 from Lan 
Computer Systems Ltd, Romford. The unit 
failed on the day of delivery, and although | 
tried to get a replacement by phoning and 
writing it took the Fair Trading Office and 
myself to get an agreement from Lan to 
refund my money, but they refused to pay me 
any out of pocket expenses. 

In the final outcome | had to sue them in 
the County Court and a County Court judge 
ment was granted against Lan Computer Sys- 
tems Ltd on 12th December 1988. This 
should be available to view in the Public 
Records Office from mid-January. | now have 
my money back and all my expenses and 
compensation — thanks, Lan. 

| will not recommend Lan or the Com- 
modore PC1 to anybody. 

This brings an idea to mind. Just how 
many dealers, suppliers and software houses 
have judgements against them? We could then 
avoid using these people. It would make a 
nice article, which is the motto of public 
records — getting the skeletons out of the 
cupboards. 

Ken Hardacre, Bridlington, East Yorks 


Xt sounds like a useful idea, but ulti- 
mately it's not that fair. Just because a 
company has a county court judgement 
against it in one case doesn't mean that 
all its dealings are suspect. After all, it 
could well be that many Express readers 
have found Lan to be fine in the past. 


SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING 
I have to agree with Bryan Morton (Issue 5) 
that Express should cover the more serious 





"4 Couldn't agree more. When rent-a-quote 
Tory MPs and Mary Whitehouse start making a 
fuss, things have a habit of swiftly slipping from 
absurd imaginings to legislated reality. These 
are strange days.. 

Meantime, for the most cogent letter to 
Express to date, you win a prize. We'll send you 
the most violent ST game we can find - that's if 
we don't fight over which one we should 
choose, that is. 





side of computing on the Spectrum and was 
pleased to hear that attention is to be given to 
this. 

1am also in agreement with Express when 
you say long program listings can only justify 
the space they take up if they are extra spe- 
cial. Long listings are not really suitable any- 
way because of the tedium of typing them in 
coupled with having no real worth until the 
hard work is done. These longer home pro- 
duced programs are so much more suited to 
a disk based magazine as they can then be 
simply loaded. Chezron Software of 605. 
Loughborough Rd., Leicester, produce such a 
compilation every month on Opus, Disciple, 
Plus D, Microdrive as well as on tape. 

Short listings, however, are worth their 
weight in gold if they present some new idea 
or useful application so | hope you might 
include the occasional "short". 

Again, like Bryan, | like the idea of the 
most popular computers having their own 
columns, May | suggest one extra column 
headed : "OTHERS to vary each week as you 
Bet different material? 

Brian Cavers, Manor Park, London E12 


Xu that would happen is that we'd get 
the one Comx user insisting that he was 
worth more than just two sentences a 
month. Then of course, there'd be the 
in 8-bitters...You just see if we're not 
right. 


PLEEEEEEASE! 

Pleeeeeease start including an Atari 8-bit cot 
umn. No disrespect to MSX owners, but there 
are probably more Atari 400, 800, 600XL, 
800XL, 2600, VCS, 65XE and 130XE owners 
who'd like such a column. The local Dixons 
sold out of 65XEs. 

RL Thomas, White City, Gloucester 


Wwe WERE right. 
PLAY IT AGAIN AGAIN 


We are writing regarding the review of The 
Munsters on our label Again Again in Express 
issue 78. 

It would appear from the review that 
reviewer has not progressed into the depths 
of the game and has only reviewed the first 
section in which you play the character Lily. 
There is much more to the game than this, ie 
you play the other characters of “The Mun- 
ster" family. There are tunnelling scenes, 





Dear Reader 





We've extended this section to THREE packed pages this 
week in an attempt to do justice to our ever growing post bag. If 
YOU write to us we might even drop in a fourth! Send to: 
Express Mail, 4 Queen Street, Bath, Avon BA1 1EJ 
PS. Sorry, NO personal replies, even if you include an SAE. Just 
make your query interesting and we'll publish the answer here. 


graveyard scenes, and then a situation where- 
by you have to drive the family hearse in order 
to rescue Marilyn from the evil grasp of "Old 
Nick’, 

So perhaps we could ask you to rereview 
this game, bearing in mind these further 
options and should your reviewer, Andy Smith, 
need any assistance in getting to these fur- 
ther levels then please tell him not to hesitate 
to contact us. 

The game, incidentally, was programmed 
by Teque, who have recently had many hits, 
including Pacmania etc 
Roger D Hulley, Managing Director, Tiger 
Developments 


x Given that the review was favourable 
("Again Again has done a nice job of cap- 
turing the feel of the cult series...It hits 
just the right level between frustration and 
addiction"), you haven't really got that 
much to complain about. Doubtless Andy 
Smith is not hesitating to contact you at 
this very minute. 


Diy we WANTED 
Welcome, to your new magazine. My likes are 
practical articles, hardware reports, business: 
type software and Public Domain programs. 

My dislikes are anything to do with com- 
puter games! | would like to see an article on 
monitors, in regard to fitting higher resolution 
monitors to home computers, And a series of 
articles, dealing with programming modules 
would be great. For example, Word Process- 
ing would require Save and Load (from prog.), 
Word Wrap, Char-width, Margins, etc — all 
could be dealt with in module form, and the 
final result might well be a DIY WP program, 
plus a disk-full of useful modules to use as 
required 

A module a week would keep the clients 
buying! Keep up the good work! 
G.H. Heppel, Horncastle, Lincs 


"4 One of the mysteries of the modern 
world is just what will appear in Express 
next. Sometimes, we even astound our- 
selves. (A lawyer adds: This is not in any- 
way meant to intimate that Mr Heppel's 
wishes will be fulfilled at any stage.) 


CONSOLING THOUGHTS 
lam writing to congratulate you on your mag, 
especially the articles on the Nintendo and 
Sega machines, and you give more informa- 
tion than other mags about the new &bit 
machines. 

Please, for us console users, can we have 
à page of our own? 
Mark Ford, Nechells, Birmingham 


x With very few software releases, the 





console market does not easily lend itself 
to a regular spot. We prefer to cover it for 
the time being via one-off specials (new 
Sega machine issue 4) or in the news 
pages. 


MEGA PROBLEMS 

For many months | have been eagerly antici- 
pating the issue of the Amiga version of Dun- 
 geon Master. Then, in late December, adver- 
tisements for this game began to state '1 
Meg’. A phone call to a mail order company 
confirms this. Oh horrors! My machine has 
only 512K of RAM! 

Then perhaps a glimmer of hope as | 
noticed in the combined issue 7/8 
of your excellent magazine that you are send- 
ing a copy of Dungeon Master to one of your 
correspondents, a Mr Eliot who presumably 
‘owns a standard A500. 

What is going on? Or am | doomed never 
to enjoy the delights of one of this past year's 
best games on my machine? 

BJ Hughes, Worcester 


"A Dungeon Master does indeed run only 
on one meg Amigas. Unfortunately, unless 
Mirrorsoft can work wonders, it looks as 
though the vast majority of Amiga owners 
will indeed be denied the pleasure of the 
game. It's almost enough to make you 
wish you'd bought an ST... 


TRAINSPOTTERS' CORNER 
Probably by the time you get this the whole 
world and his dog will have pointed the fact 
out, but | will do it anyway. Do you realise that 
the recently produced picture of an Amstrad 
Speccy (issue 6) was printed back to front? 
No? Oh well, better luck next time, | suppose. 
Keep up the good work. | enjoy reading all 
the mag, even the bits about computers | 
don't own (I have an early MK1 Speccy which 
has never ever broken down, and an ST) 
Robert Morgan, Rhonnda, Mid-Glamorgan 


2sdrawkcab sgniht gnitnirp htiw gnorw s'tahW / 


THE REAL PIRATES 

Over the years | have read more twaddle 
about software pirates than just about any 
other subject | can think of. 

In my opinion, the biggest pirates are the 
software houses themselves, who continuous- 
ly turn out over-priced garbage games pro- 
grams with only one thought in their greedy lit- 
tle minds, and that is to con money out of chil- 
dren, 

1 wonder how many of these people have 
ever seen the disappointment on a ten year 
olds’ face, who, after saving their pocket 
money and buying the latest slick-packaged 





NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 14 JANUARY 1989 » 11 





os 


EXPRESS MAIL 


YOUR LETTERS 





offering from ‘rip-off software find they have 
bought a load of boring rubbish. 

If people can get pleasure out of cracking 
this junk | say best of luck to them, because 
they will get very little pleasure out of playing 
95 per cent of them. 

Also in my experience, the majority of 
copied games are in the hands of children 
who would not have bought the original any- 
way because they can't afford to. | recently 
visited a friend who had just purchased an 
Atari, When | arrived at his house he was play- 
ing a game called Starglider. | watched him 
for a while and it all looked very familiar, and | 
realised that | used to have the same game 
for a ZX81- I think it was called Defender. 

Is this producing innovative software? Inci- 
dentally, when | talk about pirates | am not 
referring to commercial pirates. 

J Haley, Castleford, West Yorks 


Vs Sure there's a load of junk around, but 
that's where the magazines come in. Too 


mary eycophanie reviews have done 
arm to games 
- even if they have helped boost 





ing revenues in the short term. Rely on 
knowledgeable, critical reviewers and 
avoid the dross. 


MEMOTECHNICALITIES 

| must join the ranks of those writing to you 
and start by praising your efforts. A great 
mag, and the first | have bought regularly in 
ages, | am a long suffering Memotech owner, 
but we won't go into that just yet. 

My reason for writing is twofold; firstly, 
please find attached photocopies of an advert 
from several years back, for a speech recog- 
nition unit. A couple of months ago | wrote to 
another computer magazine to enquire if the 
company and/or product still existed. also 





included an SAE but have had no reply! | am 
repeating the exercise with a far more rep- 
utable mag. 

My second point is that there seems to be 
a glitch in one of your adverts. It has in fact. 
occurred in several editions, but | refer to the 
Christmas issue on page 15. It is a 
Silica/Amiga effort. In the software section, 
the Terrorpods screen and the Thundercats 
screen seem to be identical - is that right? | 
look forward to hearing from you soon, 
Neil Duran, Basingstoke, Hants 


o/ Mtr canted, the company you 
refer to (William Stuart Systems) is no 
longer in existence. Possibly that's 
because there isn't a terrific demand for 
peed Wee pa eoho 
ys. If anyone is in possession of 
such a product as a "Big Ears" (we kid you 
not) and wishes to sell it, then perhaps 
they could contact us. 





money was taken away (surprise, sur- 
But this was not the end of my sorry 





As for the Silica advert, you're abso- 
lutely spot on. Fo ', Such errors 
have nothing to do with us, Quite clear 
Silica was so excited at the prospect o! 
appearing in Express once more that it 
suffered a peculiar repetition. It can hap- 
pen to anyone. It can happen to anyone. 


ACE LETTER 

I started to read Express because after pur- 
chasing an Amstrad PC1640, | found it an 
extremely good magazine which combines the 
latest news in the world of computing, enter- 
tainment and sections for the serious users of 
a computer, as well as "gamesters’ or both, 
like me! 

1 found Express through ACE which | 
stopped buying for various reasons namely 
because the free gift in the next issue was not 
going to be my format (I wonder how many ex 
ACE readers feel the same way?) and have 
not missed an issue since. 





such suckers for tales of woe 
that we've decided to award you a Mys- 
Prize. EN D ed at o Yn 
~~ should you ever 


Kashif Quraishi, Hayes, Middlesex 


x That's a bit harsh on ACE, matey. Truly 
in the great scheme of things it is a won- 
drous publication, regardless of whether 
or not its freebies run on your machine, 
That's why it's just won Magazine of the 
Year from the whole games indusi 
| again, it only won because Express 
jadn't been around long enough...) 


SOME OCEAN NOTIONS 

| was interested to read your article on Mr 
Ward of Ocean Software regarding "new soft- 
ware for the more mature games user’. | most 
certainly will not purchase any as | have found 
their customer relations nonexistent, 

I returned on the 26th September 1988 an 
Amiga Wizball disk which failed to load cor- 
rectly, but no disk was returned. 

| wrote again on the 3rd November 1988; 
no reply. 








HARNESS THE CRACKERS 
Re Gamebusters, Express issue 6. Having read this arti- 
cle through a couple of times, my reactions are as follows. 

There is a lot of truth in what the guy said. Firstly, he is 
à cracker and not a hacker or pirate. There's a world of 
difference. He is not out to make any profit from someone 
else's hard work; nor is he out to make any mischief, but 
is merely responding to a challenge. Most of us respond 
to one type of challenge or another almost every day of 
our lives. It is what makes life interesting for the majority 
of people. OK, so his preferred challenges are cracking 
software protection. A lot better than cracking heads, 
safes etc. 

Secondly, as the guy said, "most of it is crap’. | think 
you will agree that one hell of a lot of games are just that — 
crap, and may possibly hold the attention of some adoles- 
cents for two or even three run-throughs. The crap in no 
way justifies the price asked and paid, | would suggest, by 
unknowledgeable aunts, uncles, parents or whatever, buy- 
ing for birthdays, Christmas etc. These well meaning, 
unsuspecting people should be protected from parting 
with hard-earned cash for some of the software bilge on 
the market today. 

Thirdly, the guy also said in answer to your question 
"Why should friends give them to you if they spent money 
buying them’ - "Because they get better versions of the 
game back in exchange, especially with games that are 
hard to play.” Software houses could learn something from 
that remark, such as different levels of play. It's just a 
thought - maybe they already do, but judging from the 
remark, they don't. 

Surely software houses would benefit from supplying 
the cracker with a new game and letting him crack it and 
alter it, if only to see what came back. They could have a 
protection contract with the cracker. That way, both par- 
ties could be satisfied — the cracker's need for that type of 
challenge, and the software house having the crackers 
report: difficulty to crack, levels of play etc. Surely to 
goodness it must be an avenue worth investigating, and 
beneficial on both sides of the fence? 

There must also be more to be gained than | have writ- 








@ THE SOFTWARE BUSTING DEBATE 





ten about. Let's face it: software houses are not going to 
stop the cracker legally or otherwise. So for goodness 
sake, they should get their acts together and have the 
cracker join the team, even if only on a pay for results 
basis. Better surely above ground and working for them 
with all the benefits it must bring than underground having 
to spend money and time trying to beat him which can't be 
done. I'm sure you are following my drift. Eliminate the 
cracker by using him and his skills to your advantage, thus 
freeing time and money to catch the real villains, the 
pirates. The hackers can be left to the government. 
Anyway, this is the view of a 55 year old Amiga owner, 
who, after a year of struggle with my machine, still can't 
access its ‘libraries’. Oh, for a cracker's assistance at this 
location! 
C Williams, Headington, Oxford 


Asome software houses already use crackers in various 
Wi PC ERN parier. But it's really not a 
predia, We suspect most crackers much prefer 
their own semi-ilicit battles with software... 


JUST CRACKERS 

For the first time | bought your magazine on Dec 17th 
1988, and I'm writing about your article on hackers and 
piracy. Your so called Hacker (Mr X) is not a hacker (he 
couldn't hack his way out of a paper bag). 

Incidentally, is Mr X real? If so, he must be English! Also 
, | think you made this article up. | have hacked most disk 
software on most 6502 machines. All| use is a disk sec- 
tion editor and a machine code monitor. Your Mr X used 
final cartridge or something similar. 

Also, what was the point in deleting pieces of informa- 
tion when the average user of the final cartridge could just 
do a disk search for Thunderblade to find out what track 
the relevant addresses were on. | was selling hacked ver- 
sions of Thunderblade before you got your copy. 

Compunet has nothing to do with hackers, but private 
bulletin boards do in fact have a lot to do with them. If you 
don't believe me, go onto Mininet and the number should 
be on Prestel or Gnome at Home. Or go into Limelight and 





page the sysop and ask for some phone numbers. 

Here is a list of some games that | have hacked: 
Hypersports BBC Disk; Thunderblade C64 Disk; Moon 
Buggy C64 Disk; and Operation Wolf C64 Disk. 

| can hack most Novaloads. You should have given your 
hacker a challenge — ask him to transfer Exploding Fist. 
from cassette to disk plus be invincible. If your Mr X can 
do this, then he is not a bad hacker because | can't. By the 
way if you want any software by the Virus Man, then go 
around some of the bulletin boards. 

My favourite hacked game is FRAK (BBC version). It's 
on Mininet. 

The Virus Man, Scotland 
PS News! Check Larry (PC version) out for a virus (ha hal) 


f What a remarkable missive. No wonder you' m ‘re stay- 

is... Whatever, Mr X is indeed both real and 
English. le censored some salient details in the original 
because we didn't want to encourage any other hackers 
or crackers or pirates. In a similar way, we' litted. 
your simply splendid spelling errors and linguistical oddi- 
ties, since we don't want our readers to think that all 
crackers are, er, crackers. PS Your "news" about Leisure 
Suit Larry isn't news at all to Express readers who read 
all about it back in issue 5. 


IT's A FAIR COP? 

| would like my opinion heard in the great Piracy Debate. | 
often receive copies of games from friends/colleagues, for 
instance Dungeon Master. 

| thought this game was so good | bought it. | do this with 
all the copies | receive - if | like the game, | buy it. If | don't, | 
wipe the disk. What could be fairer than that? 

I had a copy of Pacmania. If | had bought the game for 
&20 - £25 | would have been very disappointed (VERY disap- 
pointed) so | wiped the disk. 

Obviously, | can only speak for myself, but | see no harm 
in the ‘piracy’ that | am involved in - | certainly don't rip any- 
body off, and | avoid buying games which would be a waste of 
my meagre grant. 

Dave Palmer, Jarrow, South Tyneside 








x. Sounds suspiciously like an exercise in conscience- 
cleansing. Do you really mean to say you go out and 
buy EVERY pirated game you think is decent? 














12+ NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 14 JANUARY 1989 





EXPRESS MAIL 


YOUR LETTERS 











All| wished to know, had my disk been 
received or had it been returned but lost on 
the way - still no reply. 

| have on the 30th Nov 1988 written to the 
managing director; still no reply. 

1 have now informed all my friends and cok 
leagues as to Ocean Software s very poor 
customer relations, also possibly poor quality 
disks and advised them, like me, to purchase 
other producer's software. 

Keep up the good quality of your magazine 
which makes very good reading at a very rea- 
sonable price. 

Brian J Odam, Sheringham, Norfolk 


x This matter is being checked through 
with Ocean even as you read this. It has to 
be said, however, that your difficulties 
come as something of a surprise since 
Ocean is quite possibly the smartest of all 
software houses when it comes to such 
matters. Certainly, if it happened regular- 
ly, David Ward's crew would long ago sur- 
rendered its position as the number one 
games publisher. 

Having raised the topic, doubtless we'll 
now be deluged with tales of difficulties. 


MaiL TALES 

1am saddened to see yet another Mail Order 
Company (MOC) go to the wall. Not because 
they are out of business, but once again it is 
the customers who lose out. 

So, where does the blame lie? Well, obvi- 
ously with the MOC concerned, but also | 
think with the magazines that publish their 
adverts. | can usually spot a MOC who may 
run into difficulties: they run single and double 
page adverts, sometimes in spot colour, in 
several magazines, and they sell their goods 
at ridiculous discounts. 

On average it costs £500.00 to run a sin- 
gle advert in one magazine per week (more if 
itis a monthly). In order to cover the cost of 
the advert alone (let alone all the other over- 
heads) they need to sell approximately 
£5,000.00 worth of goods. If you multiply this 
over say two weekly magazines and three 
monthlies, their monthly turnover has to be 
£60,000++. | reckon that's impossible. 

So how can you spot a possible liability? 
Well, choose the company you wish to pur- 
chase from, and then pop down to WH Smiths 
and thumb through all the computer mags. If 
they are prominent in all the mags with double 
page spreads in glorious colour — forget it 

So why are the magazines responsible? 
Well, they are so concerned about competing 
with each other and filing up their pages with 
adverts that they are blind to good business 
sense. If | buy stock from a suppliers and 
don't pay for it within a reasonable time, they 
suspend further supplies to me. Do maga- 
zines do this? Of course not, they just print 
more adverts. Not until the MOC is dead and 
buried do they show concern for you, 

So is a magazine liable for your losses? 
Not directly, but morally, most definitely yes, 
and maybe legally yes. They have a responsi- 
bility to you as their customers. If it can be 
shown that they acted neglectfully and there- 
fore contributing to the problem, you may just 
have a case. 

I hope that those of you who have lost 
money (and l'm sure there will be many) suc- 
ceed in recovering your losses, but sadly | 
fear that it is money lost forever. But then 
there's something called Mail Order Protection 
Scheme... 

Steve Bonnici, Managing Director, Future- 
place Computers 


x Though your comments are doubtless 
meant well, it really is taking matters a lit- 
tle too far to blame the magazines. Obvi- 
ously, we're bound to say that. But we 
have a commercial interest in making sure 
that those companies who book ads with 
us will indeed pay for them. And we cer- 
tainly don't want our readers to be ripped 





Express: COMPLACENT, BLASE 

| have owned a PCW for two years now, and have been very satisfied 
with the high quality of Future Publishing s publications in that time. | 
therefore started to purchase New Computer Express, which, not sur- 
prisingly, is quite excellent, and certainly well worth 48p. 

However, | was sorry, surprised and saddened to read your 
response to H Twiddle's letter (Issue 7&8) regarding his problems 
when purchasing computer goods. The simple fact is that he 
has a justified complaint, and nothing can justify - despite 
your weak excuses - what he has suffered. To say his prob- 
‘real complaint” sim- 
ply because "at least you got a game that worked" is really 
appalling. You seem to think that customers should actually 
be grateful if they receive what they have ordered ! 

If you go in to a shop and buy something, you expect it to be 
as advertised/described, working and complete. In my experience, 
when ordering computer items, this is the exception rather than the 
rule. It seems that it is just fine if a retailer doesn't comply with 
his/her side of the deal (in law, a contract) so does this ludicrous sit- 
uation apply to the customer? For example, if a retailer was given 
counterfeit money after handing over goods, | am sure you wouldn't 
take this calm, blase, forgiving attitude; in reality, all hell would break 


lem is really an irritant rather than 


loose. 


However, some retailers - and apparently you also - see litle 
wrong in customers being conned into paying over their money, but 
not receiving the delivery/goods/service as agreed - and then hav- 
ing to engage in a virtual battle to get what they were promised and 
have paid for in good faith. The simple fact is that this is not only all 


too common, but becoming increasingly so. 


We are supposed to be living in times of a ‘buoyant economy’ and 
"market forces’, but to me, | interpret this as really meaning "Cus- 
tomer beware - you are about to be ripped off” simply because so 
many don't seem to give a damn about reliability, contract compli- 
ance and integrity these days, and so many, such as yourselves, are 


so tolerant of this. 


To say as you did that a lack of goods that are advertised is 
because of the failure of the supplier is pathetic. If someone advertis- 
es, they should be efficient enough to at least ensure they have the 
goods or not advertise them! Not too difficult to comprehend, is it!! In 
the upshot, if everyone behaved in this sloppy, unbusinesslike, care- 
free (and, I feel, arrogant and dishonest) fashion, pure anarchy would 
prevail and no one could be trusted, but this is what you seem to 


off when companies go bust without sup- 
plying goods that have been paid for. 

Occasionally, the odd outfit will slip 
through the net. When you're working on 
trust, that happens, But Express is espe- 
cially vigilant: we'd be bonkers to be other- 
wise. 


PRIZE GUY 
Your magazine is excellent, brilliant and super- 
dooper. All the people that work at New Com- 
puter Express must be really talented and 
brainy. 

1 have compiled a list (how original) of why 
| should be the mystery prize winner this 
week 








to behave like this ? 


une 


practices 


Mr Twiddle. 


nation. 





1. | lied a little in the first paragraph. 

2. All home computers are brilliant (I wrote 
this so as not to offend people). 

3. | would not die for your magazine (It's 
good, but not that good). 

4. | got nothing for Christmas. 

5. | know somebody called Nigel. 

6. Bros are all women. 

7. Blackburn Rovers are the best football 
team in the world. 

8, The only game | have ever won is bingo 
when | was younger, (Well, I'm not going to be 
older, am 1?) 

9. | own an Atari ST. 

10. My Mum and Dad are older than me. 
Paul Livesey, Stockport, Cheshire 


* "Yet another mail order company goes to the wall" 


endorse Why should manufacturers and retailers have a unique right 


In a society which is becoming increasingly divided, it is all too 
easy to forget how this type of "irritan 
income computer users. For example, there are a great number of 
people not earning because of say, severe disability, who spend 
most of their lives in front of a computer and £20 or so is a lot of 
money which they may have saved up for many months. OK, it 
might not be much to New Computer Express or even less to 
retailers, but it is a fortune to some people who find it very 
distressing to save up and forego something to do this, and 
then encounter this type of problem. You (conveniently) 
seem to have forgotten this. 
| appreciate that caring about and considering other people 
is well out of fashion these days, but some stil believe this is a 
better virtue than just amassing mountains of money from dubious 


In sum, itis this complacent attitude such as yours that can only 
lead to this type of behaviour increasing. 

Apart from the ethical question and the simple fact that surely 
you should get what you pay for as promised without this inane pan- 
tomime of fighting with a retailer/manufacturer to supply what was 
originally promised, New Computer Express should spend a little time 
thinking about its negative attitude - presumably indicated by its 
response to H Twiddle - and also consider how this looks to its read- 
ers who, after all, are in the same situation as the writer. 

David J Nicholls, Bellingham, London SE6 


Harsh words indeed, and many of your points are 
taken. But we are really not blase or complacent about the 
matter: we did after all help draw attention to SDC's failure 
to supply full goods and we have sorted the problem out for 


It has also to be borne in mind that the complaint was 
about not receiving the instructions for - in this instance - 
a straightforward game. Our response would've been differ- 
ent had it concerned a complex adventure being supplied 
without instructions, or had the game itself not been sent. 
So please don't yoke us in to the moral decline of the 


It's doubtless very crass of us, but we're going to award 
you a prize for placing moral matters on the agenda. We'll 
send you a wee PCW package. With instructions... 





(your word!) affects low- 


PS Some of the above facts are not true. 


i Congratulations, you've won our very 
special esl prize of one million 
pounds. (This may or may not be a true 
statement.) 


HELP SPRINGS ETERNAL 

In reply to Mr Matthews’ letter in Express 
issue 6, | have copies of both Yahtzee and 
Cribbage for the Spectrum in Basic that we 
use quite a lot, in fact my wife plays Crib- 
bage almost every day of the week. (Now | 
knew there was a reason for me buying this 
PC!) 

Unfortunately my Spectrum is the 16K 
Issue 2 model which | upgraded with a plus 
keyboard and 32K RAM upgrade chips, so 
therefore | only have copies on tape. But if Mr 
Matthews would like to contact me, | should 
be able to give him the listings for both 
games. 

Both games are very good considering 
that they are written in Basic. 

Yahtzee can be adapted for numerous 
players, and unlike PC type games | have 
used, you play the full six games. There are 
two screens, the playing screen and the score 
sheet, which can be accessed at any time in 
the game. 

Cribbage is a game for one player versus 
the computer, and is set to normal crib rules 
but it does allow for mixed runs when laying 
cards, you cannot win on the turn of a Jack, 
and the computer plays a mean game. 
Robert J Waller, 39 Quarley Way, London 
SE15 6)G 


v It fair warms the cockles of your heart 
when one reader helps out another. In 
fact, we're such sentimentalists that we're 
sending the helpful Robert a prize. To. 
whit: R-Type on the Spectrum. 











NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS © 14 JANUARY 1989 © 13 


SAMDALE COMPUTERS LTD 


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| COVER FEATURE 








How to be a smart 









The world of PC software is endlessly baffling in 
its variety. Vast arrays of products all claim- 
ing to be the very best thing jostle for 
attention, each with different tech 
specs, prices and recommen- 
dations. But 
which ones are 
the truly essen- 
tial purchases? 
For word pro- 
cessing, general 
business, 
graphics, 
entertainment, 
music, utilities 
and communi- 
cations, which 
packages will 
best fit your 
requirements 
without leaving 
you bankrupt? In 
the first in a 
series of defini- 
tive sector sur- 
veys, Express 
guides you 
through the mine- 
field of choosing PC 
software 








NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 » 15 


= 


ESSENTIALS 


COVER FEATURE 





ince its introduction the IBM PC has 

endured a reputation as a hard-core busi- 

ness machine - the suits' computer. Howev- 

er, in the US it quickly became established 
as a home computer too. 

And once it had penetrated the American 
household, the PC was subverted from its "strictly 
business" demeanour — programming languages 
appeared, then graphics software, and games, 
and low-cost applications like word processing 
and database. 

In the UK, the PC hung on to its businesslike 
reputation much longer. Not until Alan Sugar 
launched the PC1512 did the PC begin to follow 
its American counterparts into the home. Now the 
UK market also supports a wide range of soft- 
ware, at prices from the sublimely cheap to the 
tidiculously expensive. 

However, the industry continues to behave as 
though there were three completely different sets 
of PC users, with no overlap between these 
groups: the business user, the programmer, and 
the home user. If you're a typical PC owner, this 
makes it difficult to get information on all the dif- 
ferent aspects of the PC because the business 
dealers won't talk about games and music, and 
the average games dealer doesnt know about PC 
applications like databases and spreadsheets. 

To solve this problem, here is the Express guide 
to PC Essentials - the software packages that 
merit a place in everyones program library. 
Unless youre after computerising your yak-herd- 
ing operation, or robotic control over shortwave 
radio, you should find this collection of classic 
software sufficient to equip you for every eventu- 
ality. 


Woro processina 


Just about everyone processes words ('writing", 
as the activity used to be known). But the PC 
boasts more WP programs than any other comput- 
er, and picking your way through the maze can be 
difficult. 

Recommending word processors is also difficult 
because, like shirts and woolly jumpers, theyre 
largely a matter of personal choice. However ... 

For those on a tight budget or with limited word 
processing needs, the first choice should be Tas- 
word (£30, Tasman Software, 0542 438301). 
Although it does have some limitations, it pro- 
vides all the basics for creating, editing and print- 
ing text which, after all, is what it's all about. 

Further up the scale in performance as well as 
price is Protext (£60, Arnor, 0733 239011). Protext 
is fast and powerful, and adds extra features, 
including a good spell checker, macro language 
and mail merge. 

(Mail merge, if you were wondering, is a method 
of being obnoxiously familiar with people you've 
never met. It is how Reader's Digest manage to 
send you letters that say things like, "Imagine, Mr 
Smith, how a new Porsche 911 would look outside 
123 Acacia Avenue' What the author actually 
wrote was "Imagine, [field1], how a new Porsche 
911 would look outside [field2]", and the mail 
merge utility inserts the appropriate names and 
addresses.) 

Finally, for users needing compatibility with a 
"professional" word processor, Multiwriter 2 
(£100, Newstar, 0245 265017) provides file conver- 
sion from the most popular business WP pack- 
ages, as well as offering macros, spell checking, 
and the ability to edit multiple documents. To 
make handling this power easier, Multiwriter 2 
provides on-line help. There's a pop-up calculator, 
too. 


Business 


The best buys for small-scale business applica- 
tions on the PC are definitely the integrated pack- 
ages — single programs that provide multiple 
applications. 

Easily the best value must be Mini Office Per- 
sonal (£30, Database Software, 0625 878888). It 
provides modules for word processor, database, 





spreadsheet, and communications, and while few 
of these are especially brilliant they do allow you 
to swap data between the various parts, and 
there are one or two surprisingly good features 
like Prestel support in the comms modules. Mini 
Office is a good choice for anyone who thinks they 
might need businesslike software on their home 
computer. At least, at the price, you won't get 
your fingers burned if it turns out you don't need 
it after all. 

More professional and rather more powerful is 
Microsoft's excellent Works (£145, Microsoft, 0734 
500741). It gives you much the same collection of 
applications — WP, database, spreadsheet, comms 
and business graphics — but its main plus is the 
excellent on-screen help facility and series of 
interactive tutorial sessions. 

Each of the modules is good enough to stand 
against much of the dedicated competition, and 
swapping facts and figures from spreadsheet to 
database to word processor is as easy as you 
could want. 

Also worth a mention in this category is Ability 
(£99, Migent, 01 493 2655). A similar collection of 
utilities to the others, if a little slow at times, but 
very popular because it was bundled free with the 
Amstrad 1512 for a while. 


Graphics 


The PC has a reputation as a poor graphics sys- 
tem. On the most common CGA-equipped PCs 
you have only four colours in 320x200 resolution, 
or 640x200 resolution in black and white only — 
nothing to get the average ST or Amiga owner 
excited. For this reason, PC graphics software 
tends to be overlooked. 


obvious lines, circles, various brushes and fills, 
these include the ability to grab sections of the 
Screen and use these as brushes, and various 
psuedo-3D effects like distorting images for per- 
spective. 

Unfortunately, cheaper programs that provide a 
reasonable degree of usefulness are thin on the 
ground. Salvation is at hand, however, in the form 
of public domain software (see the accompanying 
box for possibilities). 


ENTERTAINMENT 


If the PC was considered poor for graphics it was 
long reckoned to be laughable for games. Which is 
odd when you look at what's available because 
although the PC may not have as many games as 
other computers, it has as many great games as 
its rivals. 

The classic PC game isn't really a game at all, 
although it is definitely first-class entertainment. 
Flight Simulator (£50, Microsoft, 0734 500741) is 
now in version 3 and although many simulators 
make the same claim, FS3 is the one that really is 
"the nearest thing to being there’. With superb 
instrumentation, dazzling graphics and fabulous 
scenery, as well as add-on scenery disks that 
cover most of the US, Japan and Western Europe, 
FS3 provides limitless fun. 

If you prefer something more destructive, Fal- 
con AT (£35, Mirrorsoft, 01 377 4644) delivers. It is 
graphically excellent and offers various outlets for 
your aggression including ground target bombing 
missions and dogfighting with MiGs. 

Adventure fans are well served with the com- 
plete collection of Infocom titles (£25 to £35, Medi- 
agenic, 0734 311666), and the Magnetic Scrolls 


PD and shareware for the real bargains 


One of the great attractions of the PC is the enormous 
range of public domain and shareware software avail- 
able. 

Public domain, or PD, programs are free and you pay 
only for the disk, and the costs of copying, documenta- 
tion and postage incurred by the library you buy it 
from, 


Shareware is sold in similar fashion but you acquire 
only the right to evaluate the software. If you decide to 
keep and use the programs you must pay a registration 
fee which is usually much less than the price of a com- 
parable commercial program and which entitles you to 
receive upgrades and usually printed documentation 
and technical support. 

Cynics might assume that anything free is worth what 
you pay for it — nothing. But there are gems in most PD 
libraries, often as good as anything available commer- 
cially. Furthermore, PD libraries are good sources for 
ae Programs that simply aren't available else- 

re. 

Finally, free or cheap PD programs can be a good 
way of trying out new kinds of software. For example, if 
you're not sure whether you could make use of a 
spreadsheet, a PD program will let you try before you 
hand over your cash for a, possibly expensive, com- 
mercial product like Supercalc or Lotus 1-2-3. 


Among the best and bestknown PD software are: 
Galaxy: A fullfeatured word processor which works 
like Wordstar Professional but includes pull-down 


However, with the increasing use of EGA graph- 
ics adaptors — providing 640x350 resolution in 16 
colours from a palette of 64 - the PC is beginning 
to look a much better bet for graphics applica- 
tions. (VGA, the forthcoming graphics standard, 
goes even further and puts the Amiga to shame.) 

The outstanding buy in this category is Deluxe 
Paint II (£100, Electronic Arts, 0753 49442). It sup- 
ports all types of graphic adaptor — so you don't 
have to worry about compatibility, although it 
obviously looks best in EGA or VGA - and it pro- 
vides features more commonly found on the better 
graphic machines like the Amiga. Apart from the 


menus for ease of use, and a spelling checker. 

: A database system that produces dBase 
I+ files (much cheaper than Ashton-Tate's £500 mon- 
ster), including report generation. It even supports net- 
works. 


Procomm: One of the best communications programs 
available, including commercial products costing up to 
£100. 

Hack: A mammoth role-playing game, similar to the 
Ultima series but using character graphics. Kill trolls, 
slay wizards, acquire hernia-inducing amounts of gold. 


Among the kinds of programs you can find in PD 
libraries that are difficult to acquire commercially are: 
Composer: Music composition system that allows you 
to compose, play and print out your works of art. 

PC Key-draw: A feature-packed graphics editor, good 
for creating technical drawings and diagrams. Features 
mouse support, but also usable from the keyboard. 


Useful addresses: 
Vasstec, 4 Royal Terrace, Glasgow, G3 7NT, tel: 041 
954 6853; 11 Uxbridge Street, Kensington, London 
W8 7TQ, tel: 01 266 3218 

, 56 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL50 7HJ, 
tel: 0242 224340 
PD Software Library, Winscombe House, Beacon 
RO porn) E. Sussex, TN6 1UL, tel: 0892 





library (£25, Rainbird, 01 240 8838). While for role- 
playing gamers, Ultima V (£30, Microprose, 0666 
54326) is the one to go for — a massive four-disk 
universe with hundreds of characters, dozens of 
towns and dungeons and a million ways to die. 

One area in which the PC continues to be weak 
(largely because of its graphic limitations) is the 
traditional computer arcade game. However, two 
products worthy of a place in your collection are 
Impossible Mission (£20, US Gold, 021 356 3388), 
a classic platforms & ladders romp, and Tetris 
(£20, Mirrorsoft, 01 377 4644), a game that almost 
defies classification. 





16 « NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 14 JANUARY 1989 


ESSENTIALS 


COVER FEATURE 











Tetris is a fast-moving puzzle game, totally 
addictive and you can install it as a memory-resi- 
dent program (so it's always available) for those 
rare moments when serious work loses its appeal. 
(Most companies ban Tetris very soon after its 
appearance in the office.) 

Finally, breaking new ground in the PC games 
field is the Freescape range — Driller, Dark Side 
and Total Eclipse — (£20, Incentive, 07356 77288) 
which combine aspects of adventure and simula- 
tion with a gripping plot and superb solid 3D 
graphics. 


Music 


Unlike the perceived problem areas like graphics 
and games, PC music is a genuine desert, With an 
ultra primitive sound chip and a tinny built-in 
speaker the PC qualifies as the worst equipped 
computer for sound and music. 

However, if you're determined, there are a few 
public domain programs around, See the PD Soft- 
ware box. 


U TILITIES 


Utilities are those programs that make using your 
PC easier and/or safer. And top of your list in this 
category should be PC Tools Deluxe (£50, Eve- 
sham Micros, 0386 765500), a collection of useful 
tools that allow you to recover accidentally delet. 
ed files, and even to get all your data back even if 
you format a disk 

The very first time you absent-mindedly delete a 
file representing several hours work, you'll consid- 
er it £50 well spent. 

But PC Tools isn't just for the bad things. It also 
provides a disk cache for speeding up disk usage, 
facilities to optimise and backup your hard disk, 
and an easy-to-use DOS shell. Since PC Tools can 
also be loaded memory-resident it is particularly 
useful, and especially so for beginners. 

One of the classic PC utility packages was Bor- 
land's Sidekick but this has since been replaced 
by Sidekick Plus which, although an excellent 
product, is bigger and more expensive and not "an 
essential" by any means. 

An alternative is PC Deskmate (Shareware, 
most PD libaries) which provides a calculator, cal: 
endar, limited notepad and DOS shell in pop-up 
form. Evaluation copies are available for a couple 
of pounds, but the shareware registration fee is 
$25. A similar product is Homebase (£59, Brown 
Bag Software, 01 874 1106) which provides a 
database, text editor, calculator, calendar and 
comms program, 


Communications 


PC communicators have a problem in the UK: the 
fact that most comms software originates in the 
US where they don't use our peculiar 1200/75 bps 
viewdata system which is obligatory for joining 
Prestel/Micronet. 

If you dont need viewdata you have a far 
greater choice, but as it happens one of the lead- 
ing comms packages — and among the best for 
value too — does support the Prestel format. Mir- 
ror II (£83, MDP Ltd, 0225 60491) is a powerful 
package with a macro language, the ability to run 
in the background (a sort of limited multitasking) 
and is easy to use for all its power. 

(If you ! y Amstrad's new M2400 modem, you 
get a copy of Mirror II free, which is an excellent 
deal if you haven't yet bought a modem.) € 


PRINTERS 


Next week, the Express Essentials guide puts 
printers under the spotlight. Which models 
really stack up? In each of the various cate- 
gories, Express selects the very best. Don't 
miss it! 














NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS 14 JANUARY 1980 © 17 

















‘CEPT 


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The unsound and the fury 


The Alan Sugar Story 


Part VII: As the industry's 
dirty tricks made Amstrad | 
furious, so the firm's later 
machine launches made 

the industry puzzled. 
William Poel proffers the 
penultimate episode in the 
Alan Sugar story Es 























hen it comes to being incandescent with 

rage, few can hold a candle to Alan | 

Michael Sugar. He was at his most utterly 

furious at the time of the infamous "PC | 
1512s overheat" tale doing the rounds in autumn 
'86. The machines were said to be incapable of 
supporting certain types of power-hungry net- 
working cards. 

The storyette reached the rumour mongers, hav- | 
ing been initiated by one of Amstrad's competi- 
tors (which was never actually named, but is 
probably the reason for the cracks in the M25 as it 
passes by Brentwood). Some of the regular PC 
press who had taken a dislike to the abrupt man- 
ner of Amstrad leapt gleefully on this story, with 
their usual macabre lust for bad news and scare 
stories. Mr S duly went through the roof. 

A feature in the Sunday Times was quickly com- 
pounded by a leader in PC Business World...which | 
was shortly afterwards the recipient of legal com- | 
munications from an outraged Amstrad. 





Proven lawyers 
For by now, Amstrad had decided that it should 
expand its staff base, and before hiring anything 
approaching a PR officer and department, it had 
chosen to put a lawyer or two on the books. And | 
jolly zealous chaps they are too. If journalists and 
competitors dont manage to get "confronted" by 
Amstrad's legal department, they aren't trying. 
When Epson claimed proprietary use of the term 
LQ (letter quality), the fur began to fly, as 
Amstrad decided to apply this to its range of 
printers. It was fun at the time, but the action fiz- 
zled out when Epson climbed down. But the real 
irony of all this is the fact that the term PCW was 
lifted (from Minolta, which had earlier launched 
the PCW1 computer wordprocessor). And the cute 
OA (office automation) logo on the PCW badge | 
appears to have been originated by Panasonic, | 


With fans like that.. 


Along with the realisation that stakes in the business 
game attracted dirtier tactics on the part of competi- 
tors (who were generally not as comatose as those 
he had confronted in the world of home computers), 
came Alan Sugar's famous remarks on the subject of 
giving the customer what he wanted, and if that 
meant fans and pink spots, then so be it. The stuffy 
old City regarded this remark as unduly flippant from 
a man who was locked in mortal combat with the 
epitome of everything the City adores (IBM), and it 
has been quoted frequently when share analysts feel 
like haunting Amstrad when it is in the throes of one 
of its "downratings". Coupled with the notion of sell- 
ing "personal nuclear weapons’, Mr S. was widely 
deemed a rum old cove. 








































and since Amstrad is a large customer of Pana- 
sonics, I guess an expedient blind eye was prof- 
fered. 


| Now, if anyone had tried to do the same with | 
any Amstrad branding device, or even something 


remotely and tenuously linkable with same, then 


stand by for writ to be nailed to the mast. This is | 
commercially sound and thoroughly aggressive | 


posturing, but typifies the "one rule for them but 
we can do what we like" approach that soured 
relations 
Amstrad and the rest of the trade during this 
phase of Amstrad's inexorable progress. 

But the underlying lesson had been learned at 
Amstrad. The gloves were off. Now that it was in 
the big league for real, an air of secrecy descend- 
ed on Amstrad Towers with a vengeance. 





4 
* Sugar: Public profile rising, but problems mounting 


At the time, the money was on Amstrad to have 
a 286 AT ready to go, and there was consternation 
when only the 8086-based 1640 appeared in 1987 
All talk of RAM shortages making it impractical 
was bluff: RAM could be diverted from the lower 
ticket value items, if necessary. 

Quite how and why Amstrad failed to produce a 


286-based system at such a vital moment is still a | 


mystery to me (and most others). It was unques- 
tionably an error of judgement. I can only imagine 
that its great cloak of secrecy effectively prevent- 
ed the man who needed to know about market 
trends from knowing that a 286 was a must for a 
Serious presence in the business marketplace. 

Just look at the succour and encouragement 
Amstrad's lack of a 286 system has provided the 
cloners and importers. Walters, NTS, Opus etc all 
heaved a huge sigh of relief when it was apparent 
that Amstrad had utterly missed its marketplace. 

Meantime, other battles were being fought. The 
PPC portables launched in early 1988 were met by 
a mixture of astonishment (the price including a 
2400 bis modem was not then much more than a 


| modem alone) and hilarity at the indifference of 


the flip-up display. The LCD display was and is 
truly lifeless when compared to decent backlit 
offerings, and although as ever Amstrad excuses 
itself on the grounds of cost, I would wager that 
most PPC owners would pay an extra £50 for a 
serious LCD. 


This impossibility of an internal hard disk and | 
the rather "modest" battery life both took the prod- | 
uct out of the running for serious corporate users, | 


but there seem to have been more customers will- 
ing to make do than these observers (including 
me) would have thought at the outset. 


between the increasingly bully-boy | 









Other end of the spectrum 


Elsewhere, the Sinclair arm of the operation was 
continuing to defy gravity and sell significant 
numbers of virtually unchanged Spectrum 
machines. They were sporting a version with the 
(surprise) 3" disk that managed effectively to 
blend the Amstrad 6128 and traditional Sinclair 
styles. Prior to the +2A, the basic Spectrum 
remained largely untouched, ensuring no prob- 
lems with compatibility. Thus the +3 was a tempt- 
ing opportunity for owners of earlier ‘Speccies to 
| simply obtain a classier lump of hardware without 
any software obsolescence. 

| Its a pity that the ST and Amiga challenge has 
(thus far) been declined. Both MEJ and Locomo- 
tive have the talent to give those markets a run 
for their money, and Amstrad has the money to 
| give them the runs...so to speak. Maybe it will yet 
| emerge in the form of an add-in card for the PCs? 
| Now that would be a creative solution. 

So when 1988's launch fever began to build, the 
marketplace anticipated efforts to catch up and 
overhaul the problems created by the missing 
286. There was much speculation about PS/2 com- 
patibility, Micro Channel Architecture and the 
rest. 

But when the launch arrived, Amstrad broke its 
rules about pre-announcing, and showed a gener- 
ally lacklustre range in the new PC200 series. It 
seems that as the quality of Amstrad brochures 
| has gradually drifted towards the industry stan- 
dard for gloss and panache, so the products have 


Sugar bags airtime 


When Alan Sugar appeared on the Wogan Show, 
there was speculation that his PR adviser had man- 
aged to wire electric shock apparatus to delicate 
parts of the Sugarian anatomy (his wallet). The aim 
would've been to prevent him rollercoastering into a 
typical Sugar tirade against the establishment, there- 
by adding to the already substantial shock to the 
Share price caused by the Stock Market crash. What- 
ever, Sugar's performance was far from vintage stuff, 
with his restrained performance replacing the cus- 
tomary incisive wit and perception. 

Since then, the great man has appeared on the bóx 
endorsing the Department of Trade & Industry's 1992 
campaign, and is well on the way to becoming a 
minor celebrity. Sir Robin Day's Question Time surely 
beckons... 


























lost their cutting edge. 

The Sinclair PC200 also appeared last Autumn. 
This was received in the wake of the dull perfor- 
mance of the Olivetti PC1 — an almost identical 
| concept and presentation. 


In view of the strenuous efforts made by Alan 
Sugar at the launch to explain problems due to 
RAM shortage, it seemed as if diverting RAM to 
the curious PC200 was an act of some contradic- 
tion, if, as he claimed, this was the reason for the 
late arrival of the sorely-needed 286 and 386 sys- 
tems. @ 


NEXT WEEK: 


Wh 











NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 » 19. 











PREVIEWS a a eT ED 





Mighty quinte 
eams In on cue 


Andy Storer ventures into the future and takes to the skies to go 


off-world for a spot of strategy, billiards, and assorted carnage 


BILLIARDS SIMULATOR INFOGRAMES 


Out on the ST later this month is the first Billiards sim 
we know of, from French graphic genii Infogrames. 
Catering for either one or two players, it offers a choice 
of three cue types, differing values of cushion and table 
friction, rebound and spin effects. 

The multi-viewpoint game also allows you to choose 
strength of shot, angle and ball placement. As it's 
French billiards you won't be surprised to learn there 
are no pockets — this game's all about scoring points 
from cannons. 





ARCHIPELAGOS LOGOTRON 


In what sounds like an interesting fusion of Sentinel and Virus, you are floating above 
a 100.island world attempting to build bridges and find an Obelisk you must destroy. 
Your enemies are trees, eggs and a Beachcomber — a wanderer who turns land to 








sand and sand to water. Featuring fabulous 3D landscapes, Archipelagos looks to 
provide a unique combination of strategy, indepth gameplay and alternate reality. 
Due out in a universe near you on ST, Amiga and PC in spring 





F-16 COMBAT PILOT DIGITAL INTEGRATION 


areas - air to air interception, counter-air operations, 


Riding the slipstream of Mirrorsoft’s Falcon, comes 
interdictor strike, battlefield ground support and 


the latest sim off the General Dynamics production 


line. Due out on ST, PC, Amiga and C64, Combat 
Pilot takes you from the crewroom to the hangar 
through pre-flight training to the cockpit of the "latest 
hitech version’ of the F-16. There are five training 








reconnaissance — which need to be mastered before 
you can tackle operational status with one of eight 
squadrons. Work your way through the sorties and it's 
onto a multi-nission war game, Operation Conquest 


(ake RT E TI 
B 


da d 


E 

















| 
| GUARDIAN MOONS MICRODEAL 


A varied five-stage multidirectional blaster featuring 
parallax scrolling and interstage animated graphic 
sequences that include 40 on-screen colours at any 
one time, Guardian Moons certainly sounds superi 
or. With an additional level called Ridiculax - a com: 
plex demo of animated horizontal scrolling — you 
can bet itll look very good too. The aim? Save the 
| Earth by taking out eight psychokillers by becoming 
one yourself. 

















CUSTODIAN HEWSON 


From the same team of Hinsley and Brownjohn that will 
one day bring you the long overdue Verminator, comes 
this little beauty — a superior shoot-em-up set in a tomb 
you must protect. You're up against waves of aliens and 
gain points by collecting energy-absorbing pods and 
destroying end-of-evel guardians. To help you in this mis: 
sion are shells and demolition rockets, electro bolts, fire- 
balls, multiplasmas, laser turrets, homing missiles and 
Megaclear smart bombs. 











20 ° NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS e 14 JANUARY 1989 





It's best to buy NOT one game BUT two games or more from | 
the club that gives you TWO for less than the price of ONE 


[| TWOlor he pce cl ONE . TWOlorihe prica ol ONE ce “TWO lor he price cf ONE | — ONE | TWOtorthe pce dl ONE TWO or tho price oi ONE 
E AMIGA 
| TV Sp Football (USA) | Starglider 2 
j {GFL Ch Football (USA) | Skychase 
not 54.94 aut 24.98 | nor 44.94 sur 22.47 | nor 


momen Prices include U.K. post and packing. All products are | 

selected for quality, individually boxed and new. We only | 

| Purple Satum Day |sell software to members of Special Reserve. If you are not | 

eee atin Blood already a member please include £4.00 membership fee. It's | 

ZZ] well worth joining as members receive our expertly written | 

Í Wormer one (Buyers Guide three times each year, catalogue list, our | 

, Ẹ J 5 | AMIGA special folder and membership card as well as the: j 

1 jopportunity to choose from over 600 products which we sell. | 

Jindividually at amazing prices. We're miles cheaper than | 
6 ‘elsewhere, if you don't believe us (many don't) please send a 


i j Wares ame none . Sci aparece neice for our full price list and detai 


AMIGA, ST or IBM | AMIGA or ST 


Universal Mil Sim | Fed. of Free Traders | 
Captain Blood ^ | Defender of the Crown 














|| TWOlerhepked ONE | TWOlorhepiked ONE | TWOleriheprced ONE | TWO lor fe pce d ONE 


NS GA MES 
| Heroes of the Lance | Infocom Solid Gold Photon Paint. Dungeon Master H 
| Defender of the Crown Lurking Horer | Defender of the Crown | D.M. Solution Book i 
| Nor 44.94 aur 22.46 GAMES 


|. TWO lor the price of ONE ‘TWO tor the price of ONE : TWO ior the price of ONE. ‘TWO tor the price of ONE | 

DEus CREDIT CARD NO. 
STOS Batman Batman Track Suit Manager | | 
Star Werk Champ Baseball | GFL Ch Footbal (USA)! Cheque, Postal Order, Visa, Access or AMEX. E 
UR eee) send your order by post or phone 0279 600204. | 
j TWO ke «ved ONE | TWO tor ihe price of ONE $ We add 50p surcharge per game for telephoned orders. `] 
d. Mia ATARI ST IBN. MAC, MAGNETIC SCROLLS Only | EBC ardere £5.00 mem bership, add "0p per game: credit rds ny] 

|| C64, ATARI 000, SPECTRUM, Lombard RAC Rally | Roger Rabbit (IMEG) | from OFFICIAL SECRETS... Special Reserve, P.O. Box 847, HARLOW, CM21 9PH 
| AMSTRAD CPC & PCW Captain Blood ‘Three Stooges’ THE CLUB FOR PEOPLE | Special Reserve is a trading name of Inter-Mediates Ltd || 
|| SEND S.AE FORFULL LIST papyro yT sur 28. WHO WANT MORE All offers are subject to availability 1 


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London 
TELEPHONE: 01-692 8700 SE13 7SW 





ATARI ST & AMIGA OWNERS WHY PAY TOP PRICES 
ALL GAMES SOFTWARE AT 3096 DISCOUNT 


EXAMPLE PRICES 


NIRE eS DOUBLE SIDED DISKS Discount 
Boe pai j 1/2 DOUBLE DENSITY E OUR PRICE 
i Doube Dragon E 135 TPI 


Super Hang On 

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Pacmania 

Hostage... 

Spaceracer. 

Falcon .... E 
Eliminator ...14.00 


Atari Mouse Extender . 
Atari Super Pack ........349.00 | Atari Two Seat Leod 


Amiga 500 + Modulator .....................369.00 Amiga Cumana Drive... 


Star LC10 Colour Printer ...................245.00 € En Ungrade - 
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| Free delivery on all hardware. Software add £1.00 per order. All prices include VAT CWO to Futureplace Ltd. Also Available to order MOBILE 
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ENTERTAINMENT 


PLAYING TIPS 





So. You were given a stack of 





new computer games for 





Christmas and have got 





bogged down on all of them. 





Here's the perfect antidote: 








the season's best-selling 


expert playing tips on five of - ^ 





titles. Time to dust off that 





wrapping paper... 





€ AFTERBURNER 


The quickest way of 
reaching the later lev- 
els of Activision's con- 
version of Afterburn - 
er is to cheat! Start 
the game as normal, 
pause the action and 
type in 'AGES' (which 
Se LF) is sega backwards) 
and then press the '>' key to advance to the next 
stage. 


€ THUNDERBLADE 


{ US Gold's conversion 
A i of Sega's helicopter 

B] gunship shoot-em-up 
has a builtin cheat 
f| mode to enable lev- 
els to be skipped. 
My This is only available 
on the ST, Amiga 
and Spectrum. C64 
owners will have to 
rely on skill and patience to complete their ver- 
sions. 

On the Amiga and ST, wait until the game has 
finished loading and the high score table has 
come on. When the digitised helicopter picture 
appears, type in 'CRASH'. The screen then flashes 
to signify that the cheat mode is active. To skip 
straight to the next level, press the 'HELP' key on 
the Amiga, and the 'UNDO' key on the ST. 

Spectrum owners have to press '2' for the joy- 
Stick and keyboard option, then press 'G' and 'O' 
together. Again, the screen flashes to show that 
the cheat mode is active, and accessing the next 
stage is achieved by pressing the 'ENTER' key. 


€ OPERATION WOLF 











in, save it (just in case) and then RUN it. 


DATA 104,173,32,208,96,169,12 
DATA 86,245,162,32,160,0,142, 
DATA 85,3,96,72,169,173, 
DATA 165,141,136,136,141,169,14 





3 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 "ERROR IN DATA" 
Spectrum owners wanting to take a shot 
at the last level of Op Wolf can do so by 
loading the 128K version in 48K mode. 
Strangely, the program runs — and starts 
on level six! 








22° NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 


To make the C64 version of Operation Wolf a touch less difficult, the list- 
ing below provides infinite bullets, grenades and energy. Simply type it 















€ R-TYPE 


Irem's amazing shoot-em-up from Activision is 
pretty tricky at the best of times. However, ST 
owners are treated to a useful listing below, 
which makes the game considerably easier. 
Enter the program in ST Basic and save it out for 
future use. Place R-Type disk A in the drive and 
RUN the program. 

Lines 60 to 80 provide the following effects: 60 
gives infinite credit; 70 installs infinite lives; 
and 80 retains collected weapons after the ship 
has been destroyed. By including any or all of 
these lines, the difficulty level of the game can 
be varied to suit. 





SuperGame SuperTips 

























GENERAL TIPS 
(Spectrum version) 
1) Reflective lasers are the most useful. The cir- 
cular lasers are more powerful, but merely fire 
ahead and really only as effective as bullets. 

2) On the fourth and fifth levels, it's best to stay 
near the middle of the screen, since aliens 
attack from all sides. 

3) Homing missiles only home in on objects in 
front of the ship, so if a target cannot be hit, 
move to the left of it. 

4) Keep collecting the reflective laser icons; the 
laser beams grow in length and are thus more 
useful. 

5) The large robots on level six cannot be 
destroyed; they must be avoided. 





END OF LEVEL GUARDIANS 
1) Destroy the guardian's eyes, and then detach 
the force so that it lies against the head in the 
monsters stomach. It is this small creature 
which must be destroyed, and the concentrated 
firepower soon sees it off. 

2) Hover directly above the middle of the 








@ BATMAN 


adventure which profits 
POKEing. 


prompt, simply enter '1' or 








"m 














Oceans Batman game is a tricky aracde 


The following C64 listing should be typed 
in, saved for future use, and RUN. At the 


mission, and make sure that the right game 
is loaded or the program crashes. 


guardian with the force at the 
rear. As the eye appears it con- 
tacts the force not the ship. 
| Also, the snake cannot touch 
| the ship in this position, but 
keep firing to destroy the 
snake's segments. 

3) Completely destroy the 
underside of the ship, and then 
stay near to the yellow block, 
close to the ground. This way 
the mothership passes overhead 
without crushing the R-9. At the 
far end of the vessel, blow up all 
the blue guns and wait for the ship to stop. 
Switch the force to the rear of the R-9 and 
despatch it along the top of the mothership, 
finally guiding it down to destroy the purple pis- 
ton. 




















4) Destroy all the pods before the guardian 
appears. Put the force on the rear of the R-9, 
then wait in the bottom right hand corner. As 
one section of the guardian drops down the left 
side, shoot the dome with reflective lasers or 
despatch the force when it is in line. When the 
first part has blown up, move quickly across to 
the left hand corner and deal with the second 
section in the same way. The third section is 
then easily dealt with. 

















5) The guardian approaches from below, so 
watch out. A series of white blobs appear, and 
these are best dealt with by despatching the 
force into the centre of them, dodging any that 
come near When all the blobs have been 
removed, a ship is revealed beneath. Simply hit. 
the flashing square to blow up the craft. 



















from a healthy 


for the correct 


THING FOR PART 1 OR 








32, 86,245,169, 32,141,84, 
1,141,86,3, 96,72, 77,80 
125,104,173,32,208,96 












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1989. Micronet is not just informative, it's do the talking. 


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Peewee ee ee Sy 
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& 
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a 
eee X 








ENTERTAINMENT 


REVIEWS 





€ This week we review six of the best titles cur- 
rently available for the PC. 

Zak McKraken and Looking For Love (not for- 
getting California Games on the Amiga) go for an 
amusing approach, while Battle Chess and Strike 
Fleet offer more sedate challenges. 

It looks like 1989's going to be a great year for 
PC owners! 


After debuting on the Amiga, Battle Chess was met 
with great acclaim for its graphics and sound, tem- 
pered by an average gameplay verdict. So, given 
the vast gulf between PC and Amiga specs, is a 
purchase worth the risk? 

€ GAMEPLAY 

Featuring ten levels of difficulty and an opening library of 
30,000 moves along with over three megabytes of 3D 
animation, Battle Chess sets out to beef up what might 
be termed the most active aspect of chess - namely the 
taking of pieces. Here, animated combat accompanies 
all captures and adds an element of humour to strategic 
seriousness. 

As with most chess programs worth their salt, you can 
move by keyboard or mouse, reload and save games, 
set up positions for problem-solving, force, take back 
and suggest moves and replay whole games. In addition, 
you can also play games by modem, thus adding a new 
dimension to games by post or telephone. 

Considering that on level 9 the computer takes over 
21 minutes to make its move you can be assured of 
some strong competition. 

@ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 

We could only test Battle Chess on a CGA card but at 
the end of the day, graphics are not that important in 
Chess in any case. The pieces are nevertheless well 
defined and animation smooth enough, although once 
you've made a move you won't necessarily always want 
to sit through the sometimes painfully slow animated 
sequences 


CGA graphics: just about adequate 


Luckily there's a 2D view of the board too, which dis- 
poses of the more indulgent aspects of the game. 
Sound, which can be turned off and on, is not all that 
fantastic, and concentrates on supplying cartoon spot- 
effects to the animated action. 

@ OTHER VERSIONS 

The Amiga version does of course leave the PC one 
standing. In both graphics and sound there's a whole 
world of difference, but then you'd expect that wouldn't 
you? 

€ EXPRESS VERDICT 

Not bad for a souped chess prog for beginners. While 
the strength of play is relatively weak compared to, say, 
Colossus X on the ST, Chessmaster on the Amiga or 
Sargon on the PC (with its library of 67,000 moves), 
there's still enough here to impress. 


ooo 


Andy Storer 








California Games is another in the long line of very 
successful Epyx sports sims, involving six Califor- 
nian-based sports events: Half Pipe Skateboarding, 
Foot Bag, Roller Skating, BMX Bike Racing, Flying 
Disk (frisbee to you and me) and the obligatory 
Californian pursuit - Surfing. 

€ GAMEPLAY 

California Games allows one to eight players to compete 
or practise in individual or all six events in a bid to 
achieve the accolade of Californian Champion and win 
loads 'a' trophies. 

Each event involve differing tactics with the basic 
theme of joystickwaggling at the right time and the right 
place, with the skill factor being on how successful you 
are at making these decisions. The events are in true 
laid-back Californian style, with debonair and skillful 
manoeuvres helping you achieve far better scores and 
bonuses. 

Half Pipe Skateboarding and Foot Bag place you on a 
Static screen, while the other events are played over a 
horizontally-scrolling backdrop. Each event contains 
many nice little touches, such as sharks making an 
appearance when you get wiped out on the Surfing 
event, which help to enliven the game and add to its 
overall interest. 





W-w-wipeout ... 


@ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
Audio-visuals are best described as competent but not 
outstanding. They certainly don't exploit the Amiga's 
graphics and sound hardware to the full 

The sprites and backdrops seem to be straight conver. 
sions from the C64 version, albeit with better resolution 
and colour. Surprisingly, the audio comprises non-sam- 
pled sound effects and tunes, making them sound clear 
er but a little simplistic when compared to the more con- 
ventional sound-sampling method. 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
The &bit versions can now be found on the compilation 
Giants by US Gold, which also includes Out Run, Gaunt- 
let Il, 720° and Rolling Thunder. 
€ EXPRESS VERDICT 
California Games is quite an enjoyable game, but it has 
got problems — namely a lack of lasting interest (due to 
its limited number of events) and each event being 
rather too easy to complete. Therefore California 
Games is probably best suited to the younger Amiga 
gamester. 


ooo 


Rik Haynes 


Hotball is a football simulation from a French soft- 
ware company called Satory, and includes its own 





Computer controlled player about to score an own 77] 
four-player joystick adaptor (which doubles as an 
j-pirating device). 

€ GAMEPLAY 

Not much to say, except that the game is viewed in an 
overhead fashion on a vertically-scrolling pitch, with you 
playing against an opponent (either computer controlled 
or one of the possible three human players) in a timed 
match of football. 

During play you have a range of possible moves such 
as kicking the ball at ground level, at 45* angles or into 
the air, which you have to master if you fancy your 
chances as footballer of the year. 

Perhaps the worst feature of the game is the infuriat: 
ing wait before play continues after scoring a goal - you 
want to get straight back into the action, not witness a 
crowd cheering 
© GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
Audiovisuals are barely adequate, including jerkily.mov. 
ing sprites with only a few frames of animation and very 
simple sound spot-effects. 

Of particular note is the annoying sampled sound-track 
which continually repeats a few bars of music and will 
either drive you mad or have you quickly reaching for the 
volume control. 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
Hotball is also available on the Amiga, but we haven't got 
our hands on a copy yet. 
€ EXPRESS VERDICT 
Despite Hotball being supplied with its own four-player 
adaptor, it fails to provide an enjoyable game of footie 
and isn't blessed with state-of-the-art audio-visuals to 
compensate for this deficiency. 

Overall we'd go for International Soccer by Microdeal 
which is a better football sim in gameplay and audio-visu 
als, is £5 cheaper, and also has a four-player option (the 
adaptor allowing this costs an extra £6). 


oo 








Rik Haynes 


Night Hunter allows you to take on the persona of 
a member of the living dead, i.e. a vampire, 
frantic search to seek out some holy medallions. 
These protect the general public from your blood- 
sucking exploitations. All this so that that old vam- 
pire, Count Dracula, can rule the world and live 
(die?) happily ever after. 

€ GAMEPLAY 

Unfortunately for you, Professor Van Helsing, ace vam- 
pire-hunter, has heard about your little adventure and has 
formed an army of vampirekillers and laid anti-vampire 








Night Hunter can drive you batty at times! 





24 « NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 





ENTERTAINMENT 


um ——À—Ááe —-— REVIEWS. 





traps which you'll have to negotiate in this platform 
exploration type game. 

Luckily, as a vampire you can change shape into either 
à bat or a werewolf and back to a vamp again, depend- 
ing on what type of hazard you encounter in your travels. 
On your travels you pass through some Gothic-style 
buildings, looking like something out of a Hammer horror 
movie. 
€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
The graphics aren't too bad and contain some nice back- 
drops and sprites, although the sprites are a little on the 
small side 

The sampled sound spoteffects are simple but appro- 
priate. 
@ OTHER VERSIONS 
No details on the other versions are currently available. 
@ EXPRESS VERDICT 
Night Hunter is an agreeable release, which conjures up 
a good atmosphere with its audio-visuals and gameplay, 
and will appeal to the expert and novice explorer alike. 


ooo 


Rik Haynes 


Phantom Fighter is another scrolling shoot-em-up, 
one which supports some great backdrop graphics 
backed up by tough gameplay. It's designed and 
programmed by a new Ireland-based software 
design team called Emerald Software. 





Vertically-scrolling shooting mayhem in level one 


€ GAMEPLAY 
You've been given the task of controlling a spacecraft, 
and must travel through sand storms, volcanoes and 
lunar surfaces wiping out any alien craft that you meet 
along the way. 

Fortunately, some of these aliens yield collectable 
pods which'll give you more powerful weaponry; which 
you'll need if you've going to take out the wel-armed and 
armoured alien guardians at the end of every level. 
€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
Visuals consist of very well designed backdrops, slightly 
marred by the average sprite designs that accompany 
them. 

Audio supports the usual range of weapon and explo- 
Sion sound spot-effects. 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
Phantom Fighter makes a superior audio-visual outing on 
the Amiga (of course) but don't hold your breath for the 
ST version because Martech considers that "the ST can't 
handle the graphics'. 

@ EXPRESS VERDICT 

For a scrolling shoot-em-up, Phantom Fighter doesn't 
provide a fast enough response to your control move- 
ments, which can be very frustrating at times. Having 
said that, the backdrop graphics are very attractive and 
the game is a tough nut to crack. 

At the end of the day Phantom Fighter's yet another 
shoot-em-up without any truly outstanding features. Noth- 
ing more, nothing less. 


ooo 


Rik Haynes 








Given its full title, Leisure Suit Larry Goes Look- 
ing For Love (In Several Wrong Places), you'd 
expect the sequel to 1987's adventure fantasy of 
the year to be well worth a look-in. 

Judging by the original's recent popularity in The City, 
where viruses made justifiable amends for the masses 
of pirated copies on the 
loose, this one's already 
got a guaranteed follow. 
ing. Which is, presum- 
ably, why it's appearing 
on the PC first. 





€ GAMEPLAY 
For adult adults only 
Larry wears Grecian 


2000 and a white suit 
with shirt open to the 
waist and a gold chain 
round his neck. He's the 
original blind date night 
mare, the most negligible 
bachelor of the year. 

Your aim is to make 
Larry score and, appro- 
priately enough, you do 
this by using the joystick. 
Mouse, keypad or direc- 
tion keys will also move 
Larry from encounter to 
encounter, though, and 
‘once in position (ho hum) 
you're able to enter com- 
mands in English to inter: 
act with other characters. 

As with Infocom adven- 
tures, the parser is very 
smart and humorous, and once you've adopted the 
practice of looking and examining everything you come 


across youre easily hooked. As the parser under 
stands Flirt, Give, Grip, Hold, Kiss, Lift, Play, Push, 


Strike Fleet allows you to take on the role of a 
strike fleet commander in a naval wargame simu- 
lation involving various scenarios, each with its 
own tasks and objectives. Your ultimate goal is to 
become Fleet Admiral (picking up any awards 
along the way) should your strategic skills be suffi- 
cient. 

© GAMEPLAY 

During play you'll have complete control over your fleet, 
from choosing your flagship to deciding which missile 
you're going to use to take out an enemy vessel; all con- 
trolled by clearly displayed menu options and in-game 
screens. 

Adaptability is the name of the game, though, because 
the enemy will throw attacks at you from the air, on and 
below the sea's surface, therefore forcing you to adopt 
differing tactics as the game progresses. 
© GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
Visuals are up to scratch with varied and attractive 
screens featuring a good use of definition and colour 
throughout (especially EGA graphics), although the view- 


LOOKING FOR LOVE 





A seedy and amusing reflection of life as a nerd in America 





Smell, Swing, Taste and Touch, you can guess your 
main objective. And they're only some of the document- 
ed keywords! 

You have to be outrageous to succeed in this game 
and, as the author states in the introduction, no-one 
ever caught a social disease from a keyboard, Using 
pulldown menus you can adjust Larry's speed or the 
volume of the accompanying music. Crucially, you can 
also adjust the Filth level. Seeing as how this will usual- 
ly default to the max, it's fortunate you can save 
games when you're exhausted. 
€ GRAPHICS AND SOUND 
A 3D animated adven 
lure which takes you 
from jet airliners to TV 
dating shows to South 
Pacific Islands, Larry's 
graphics are above 
average for the 
machine and, even with 
the usual negligible 
sound effects of the 
PC, add an element of 
humour to the mass 
awaiting you in the 
parser. 

@ OTHER VERSIONS 
There might be an 
Amiga version out later 
this year, but for the 
time being only an ST 
version is definite. 

@ EXPRESS VERDICT 
Great fun even for 
those who've never 
touched a bottle of 
Grecian 2000 in their 
lives. Looking For 
Love is a stylishly pack- 
aged descent into the 
seedier realms — of 
Raunchville, USA. As 
the cover states, "In the War between the Sexes, don't 
be an unarmed innocent bystander" 


0000 


Andy Storer 








port section of the screen is rather small. 

Audio is of the usual low quality due to the limited 
sound hardware found on the PC standard. 
€ OTHER VERSIONS 
Strike Fleet is also available on the C64, where it fares 
better in the audio department but is only available on 
disk. 
€ EXPRESS VERDICT 
Strike Fleet offers PC owners the chance to play a slight- 
ly different scenario from the average simulation, with a 
realistic and compulsive representation of the myriad of 
tasks involved in being a strike fleet commander. It 
should keep the avid simulation fan occupied for quite 
some time. 


0000 Rik Haynes 






2 LAMPS 
+ Horpoon 
REM 

snm shens 


* MKS 





Getting set-up in the ship yard 








NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 « 25, 


Lez 











ENTERTAINMENT 


SOFTWARE GUIDE 





















AMIGA 
20000 Leagues 
Under The Sea. 18.95. 
Amiga Gold Hits 1... 24.99 
Baal. T 19.95 
Barbarian II 19.99 
Batman 24.95 
Billiards .............. ..19.95 
California Games... 2499 
Captain Fizz. 1495 
Circus Games 2495 
Cosmic Pirate....... 19.99 
Crazy Cars II 2499 
Dark Fusion. 1939 
Deluxe Paint II 
& Deluxe Print „69.95 
F-16 Falcon „29.99 
Freedom 19.95 
Galactic Conqueror 24.95 
Galdregon's Domain. 19.99 
Gary Lineker's Hotshots .....19.99 
Gauntlet 11 1939 
Hellbent «..19.95.. 
Hotball 2495 
Incredible 
Shrinking Sphere. 2499 
International Karate+ 2499 
Kennedy Approach. 2495 
Manhattan Dealers. 2495 
Purple Saturn Day 2495 
Super Hang-On.............2499 
Superman - Man of Steel ...24.95 
Technocop. 19.99 
Teenage Queen 1995 
The Munsters 19.99 
Tiger Road 24.99 
‘Track Suit Manager. 19,99. 
TV Sports Football .... 29.99 
Ult. Sound Tracker........... 39.95 
Wanted. 18.95 
War in Middle Earth. 24,99 
Zero Gravity. 19.95 
AMSTRAD CPC 
Afterburner. D....14.99 
Afterburner. T. 59 
Barbarian Il D...1439 
Barbarian II T....9.99 
Chuck Yeagers 
Adv Flight Trainer .....D ...14.95 
Chuck Yeagers 
Adv Flight Trainer......T.....895 
Crazy Cars II. D...14.99. 
Crazy Cars II. T......9.99. 
Dark Fusion D...1499 
Dark Fusion T.....9.99. 
Galactic Conqueror......D....14.95 
Galactic Conqueror ......T ......9.95 
Gary Lineker's HotshotsD...14.99 
Gary Lineker's HotshotsT.....9.99 
Incredible 
Shrinking Sphere........D ...14.99 
Incredible 
Shrinking Sphere... T 9.99 
Mini Office 1. T...299 
R-Type. D....14.99 
Technocop ... D... 1499. 
Technocop sss. T. 
The Archon Collection. T. 
The Munsters. ~D. 
The Munsters. ou 
Tomcat Pon 
War in Middle Earth.....T .....9.99.. 
AMSTRAD PCW 
Fish! .... 04.99 
ARCHIMEDES 
[er e sree 2499 









IES 


January 19. 


End Jan. 


End Jan. 


Out Now. Coktel Vision 
Out Now. US.Gold 
Early Jan. reat 
Jan/Feb. 
Mid Jan m 
Mid Jan. Ere/Infogrames 
Out Now.. Epyx/U.S.Gold 
Early Jan Psygnosis/Psyclapse 
Out Now dien lesoft. 
Jan/Feb Outlaw 
Imminent Titus 
February 7 Gremlin 
Out Now. Electronic Arts 
Out Now Mirrorsoft. 
Out Now. Coktel Vision 
Out Now. Titus 
Mid Jan Pandora 
February 14 Gremlin 
Out Now. US.Gold 
Out Now Novagen 
Out Now Satory 
End Jan........ Electric Dreams 
Mid Jan. System 3 
January 17. Microprose 
Out Now. Silmarils 
Imminent s Exxos 
Imminent ... Electric Dreams 
Out Now Tynesoft 
Out Now. Gremlin 
January Infogrames 
Out Now... Again Again 
January 13 ...CapconvU.S.Gold 
Out Now.. Again Again 
Out Now. Cinemaware 
Out Now EAS. 
Out Now. Infogrames 
February....... Melbourne House 
Out Now EAS, 
Imminent... Activision 
Imminent Activision 
Jan/Feb, Palace 
Jan/Feb... Palace 
Early Feb. Electronic Arts 
Early Feb....... Electronic Arts 
Imminent Titus 
Imminent Titus 
February 7 Gremlin 
February 7 Gremlin 
Out Now...... „Titus 
Out Now. Titus 
February 14 Gremlin 
February 14 „Gremlin 
End Jan. Electric Dreams 
End Jan.........Electric Dreams 
Out Now .... Summit 
Out Now ..... Electric Dreams 
Out Now. „Gremlin 
Out Now.. -Gremlin 
Out Now. Electronic Arts 
Out Now. Again Again 
„Out Now......... Again Again 
Mid Jan, Players 


Melbourne House 


Rainbird 


Out Now = Released within the last month 


ATARI ST 

20000 Lgs Undr The Sea.....19.95 . Out Now. Coktel Vision 
Barbarian II 19.99 . Imminent Palace 
Batman................ ....19.95 . Mid Jan...................Ocean 
Billiards ....... 19.95 . Mid Jan. Ere/Infogrames 
Bismark. 1-24.99 . Qut NOW ........... PSS 
Captain Fizz. 14.95 . Early Jan ierann 
Circus Games 24.95 .Out Now ... lesoft. 
Cosmic Pirate.. 19.99 . Jan/Feb Hioni 
Crazy Cars II 19.99 .Out Now... —] 
Dark Fusion........ 19.99 February 7. Gremlin 
F-16 Falcon. 24.99 .Out Now Mirrorsoft 
Freedom. 19.95 . Out Now..........Coktel Vision 
Galactic Conqueror 19.95 . Out Now. Titus 
 Galdregon's Domain. „19.99 . Mid Jan. Pandora 
Game Over II....... 24.95 ..Out Now. Dinamic 
Gary Lineker's Hotshots .... 19.99 . February 14 Gremlin 
Hellbent ........... .19.95 ..Out Now. Novagen 
Hotball. 24.95 .Out Now Satory 
Incredible 

‘Shrinking Sphere. 19.99 ..End Jan Electric Dreams 
Tron Lord 24.99 ..Late Jan... Ubi Soft 
Manhattan Dealers. 19.95 ..Out Now. Silmarils 
Night Hunter, 19.99 .Out Now. Ubi Soft 
Purple Saturn Day .........24.95 .Out Now .. Exxos 
Spitfire 40 

& Strike Force Harrier........24.99 .Out Now. Mirrorsoft. 
Superman - Man of Steel ...24.95 . Out Now ‘Tynesoft 
‘Technocop. 19.99 ..Out Now. „Gremlin 
Teenage Queen... 19.95 . January. Infogrames 
The Munsters 19.99 Out Now. Again Again 
Tiger Road 19.99 January 13... Capcon/U S Gold 
Track Suit Manager. 19.99 ..Out Now. Again Again 
Wanted 19.95 .Out Now... nfogrames 
War in Middle Earth... 24.99 . February...... Melbourne House 
Zany Golf. 24.95 .Late Jan. Electronic Arts 
Zero Gravity. 19.95 . Out Now. EAS. 
COMMODORE 64/128 

Action Service. D....14.95. January ...... Cobra/Infogrames 
Action Service T sou -9.95 January ......Cobra/Infogrames. 
Circus Games. D.....14.95 .Out Now Tynesoft 
Circus Games ^T ...9.95..0ut Now. ... Tynesoft 
Dark Fusion D....14.99 February 7. Gremlin 
Dark Fusion T.....9.99.. February 7 Gremlin 
Exploding Fist + D.....12.99 ..Out Now. Firebird 
Exploding Fist + T.....9.99.. Out Now. Firebird 
Fish! D....19.99. End Jan......... Rainbird 
Gary Linekers HotshotsD...14.99 February 14 Gremlin 
Gary Lineker's HotshotsT......9.99 .. February 14 .,.........Gremlin 
Grand Prix Circuit.......D....14.95 .Late Jan. Accolade/EA 
Grand Prix Circuit ......T .....9.95. Late Jan. -Accolade/EA 
Hostages. D....14.95 ..Mid Jan. Infogrames 
Hostages T.....9.95 Mid Jan. Infogrames 
Incredible Shrinking 

Sphere. D.....14.99 End Jan. Electric Dreams 
Incredible Shrinking 

Sphere T.....9.99..End Jan. Electric Dreams 
Iron Lord. D....19.99 ..Late Jan. Ubi Soft 
Iron Lord sme T 082,99 . Late Jan......... Ubi Soft 
Jordan vs Bird: 

One on OnelL...........D...14.95 .Out Now. Electronic Arts 
Mini Office 1 T 2.99 ..Out Now. Summit 
Project Firestart. D....14.95 . Early Feb......... Electronic Arts 
R-Type. D....14,99 .Out Now Electric Dreams 
Rocket Ranger. D...14.99 January Cinemaware. 
Serve and Volley. D....14.95 ..Out Now...........Accolade/EA. 
Serve and Volley.........T .....9.95 Out Now..........Accolade/EA 
StarRay.... D ...14.95 .Out Now.......... Logotron 
StarRay. T.......9.95 ..Out Now. Logotron 
Street Gang. T.....199. Mid Jan. Players 
Superman - Man of SteelD..14.95 .Out Now Tynesoft 
Superman - Man of SteelT ....9.95 Out Now c Tynesoft 
TKO, 2 14.95 .Out Now Accolade/EA 
TKO...... 9.95 ..Late Jan. Accolade/EA 
Tank Attack. D 14.99 ..Out Now............ CDS 
Tank Attack T....12.99 .Out Now. CDS 
Technocop....... D....1499 Out Now.............. Gremlin 
Technocop T .....9.99 ..Out Now. Gremlin 
The Double T.......2.99..Out Now n SUMMIT 
The Munsters.. D....14.99 .Out Now.. Again Again 
The Munsters... T......9.99 .Out Now. -— 

Tomcat ........ T ...199 . Mid Jan. Players 
War in Middle Earth ..D .. 1999 February... Melbourne House 
War in Middle Earth.... T ....9.99 . February...... Melbourne House 














i RELEASE SCHEDU 


ES ISB RSS SPP EB - 


BBC 


Football Director D 


Football Director.........T ....9.99 ..Out Now. 
Mini Office 1 T.....2.99.. Out Now 
ELECTRON 

Mini Office 1 T.....299..Out Now. 
IBM & COMPATIBLES 
20000 Leagues 

Under The Sea 5.25....19.95..Out Now. 
Abrams 

Battle Tank ......3.545.25....24.99.. Early Feb. 
Battlechess.... 35....24.96 ..Out Now .... 
Battlechess. 5.25 ....24.95 ..Out Now..... 
Billiards 5.25....19.95.. Mid Jan. 
Circus Games. 5.25 ....24.95 ..Out Now. 
Crazy Cars II..........5.25....24.99..Imminent 
F-16 Combat Pilot....5.25 ... 24.95... End Jan.. 
Fast Break. 5.25 ....24.95 . Late Jan. 
Freedom 5.25....19.95 Out Now........ 


Galactic Conqueror..5.25 
Grand Prix Circuit.....35... 


Grand Prix Circuit....5.25 ...24.95.. Out Now. 
Halls of Montezuma 5.25 ....24.95 , Early Jan 
Hostages 5.25 ...24.95 „Mid Jan. 
Manhattan Dealers 5.25 ....24.95 .Out Now. 
Rackem 5.25 ....24.95 .Out Now. 
Speedball 3.5+5.25 ....24.99 January. 
Star Goose........3.5+5.25 ....24.95 .Out Now... 
StarRay. 3.5*5.25....24.95 ..Out Now. 
Strikefleet. 35..24.95.. Out Now. 
Strikefleet. 525....24.95 . Out Now. 
The Bard's Tale II.....3.5....24.95 . Out Now. 
The Bard's Tale II....5.25 ...24.95 . Out Now. 
The Train. «5,25 ,..24.95 „Out Now. 
Times of Lore .........5.25 ....24.95 January 17. 
War in Middle Earth 5.25 ....24.99 February. 
Wasteland........3.5+6.26 ,...24.95 . Early Feb 
Zany Golf. 3.5+5.25 ....24.95 Out Now. 
MACINTOSH 

Fish! 34.99 . End Jan 
MSX 

The Munsters T.....9.99 .Out Now. 
SPECTRUM 

Barbarian II. T.....9.99..Imminent 
Captain Blood. T......9.95 .Mid Jan. 
Circus Games T... 8.95 Out Now 
Dark Fusion. T......7.99 February 7 
Exploding Fist +... T... 7.99 . Out Now. 
Gary Lineker's HotshotsT.....7.99 February 14 
Incredible Shrinking 

Sphere. T .....9.99 . End Jan. 
Mini Office 1 ... T.....2.99..Out Now 
Skateball .. T......8.99..Out Now. 
Street Gang..............T .....1.99 .Mid Jan. 
Superman - Man of SteelT..8.95 .Out Now 
Tank Attack... T.....12.99 Out Now. 
Technocop T......7.99 , Out Now, 
The Double T......299 Out Now. 
The Munsters T.....9.99..Out Now. 
War in Middle Earth.....T ....9.99 „January 19. 
SPECTRUM Pg 

Barbarian Il in 14.99. Imminent 
Captain Blood. 2 44.95... Mid Jan. 
Dark Fusion. 3 12.99 . February 7 
Fish!... 15.99. End Jan... 
Gary Lineker's Su 12.99 February 14 
Mini-Putt. D....14.95..Late Jan 
Skateball...............D..1499.Imminent........... 
Technocop D.....12.99.. Out Now...... 
The Archon Collection.D ....14.95 .Out Now 
The Munsters D.....14.99 ..Out Now. 


CRITE 


New Computer Express 


EXCLUSIVE 


upplied by 





12.99..Out Now 


24,95 . Out Now. 
24.95 Out Now. 


CDS 
CDS 
Summit 


„SUMMIT 


Coktel Vision 


Electronic Arts 
„Interplay/EA 
__dnterplay/EA. 
Ere/Infogrames 
Tynesoft. 

n Titus 


„Digital Integration 


Accolade/EA 
Coktel Vision 
sons TUS 
Accolade/EA 
Accolade/EA 
SSG 
Infogrames 
Silmarils 
..Accolade/EA 
Image Works 
....Logotron 
Logotron 

... Electronic Arts 
Electronic Arts 
Electronic Arts 
Electronic Arts 
Accolade/EA 
„Microprose 
Melbourne House 
„Electronic Arts 
Electronic Arts 


Rainbird 


Again Again 


Gremlin 


Electric Dreams 
Summit 

+ Ubi Soft 
Players 

Tynesoft 

se CDS 
Gremlin 

Summit 

... Again Again 
Melbourne House 


„Palace 
Exxos 
„Gremlin 

.... Rainbird. 
„Gremlin 
„Accolade/EA 
«Ubi Soft 
ns GTEMIIN 
Electronic Arts 
Again Again 





Imminent = Expected at time of publication 


The Release Schedule is a reference guide to new and forthcoming products. Dates given are expected release dates and will 
be adjusted weekly. Please allow for slippage. Compiled by Software Information Services, a department of Inter-Mediates Ltd. 


acc re a lll 








Includes STFM with IMEG drive, 21 games with 
business software (worth over £450) & Joystick. 


Only £349.00 


520 STFM latest version with 1MEG drive fitted 

1040 STFM latest model, inc. TV modulator, wi 
"VIP Professional' for only .. 

1040 STFM model with 2 softw: a 

1040 STFM model with 2 software items as above, includi 
extras as suppl 


Mega ST2 with mono monitor, 'MS-Write' and ‘VIP Pro." 
Mega ST4 with mono monitor, 'MS-Write' and ‘VIP Pro. 
SLM804 laser printer, great value at 
SM124/5 mono monitor 
Mega ST2 package - incl s 1 
drive, SLM804 laser printer, ‘Microsoft Write’, 'VIP Professional’, 
‘Fleet St. Publisher’ software and 90 days on site maintenance .. £ 
Atari DTP system - includes Mega ST4, mono monitor, 
SLM804 laser printer, 30Mb hard disk, ‘Fleet Street 
Publisher' software and 90 m on site maintenance. 
5.25" External drive 40/80 track 3í '20K formatted capacity 
Pace Linnet Modem Pack inc.cable & software .. 
'e 1022 14" TV/Monitor inc.full remote control, c/w ST or Amiga cable 
Philips CM8833 colour monitor c/w ST or Amiga cable 
Philips CM8852 as above, higher resolution 
Cameron Handy Mouse, high quality replacement ST mouse 


A new Amiga 500 package Including the following: (extras worth over £270) 
* Amiga 500 computer X Photon Paint — X Demolition 

* TV Modulator * Karate Kid 1% Atax 

* Mouse & Mouse mat % Goldrunner x plus 5 disks of 

* Joystick * XR 35 public domain s/ware 

* Las Vegas * Grid Start. 

Oceanic OC-118 647128 disk drive for 64/128 with free GEOS software 
Oceanic OC-118 as above with Freeze Machine 

Freeze Machine complete backup cartridge, with integral reset button 
LC-10 commodore 64/128 ready printer inc. 2 extra black ribbons free 
LC-10 7-colour version of above printer inc. 2 extra black ribbons. 


* Very Quiet 

* Slimline Stylin 

* Fully Compatible 
* Top quality Citize 


Fully compatible, high quality 3.5" 
extemal drives forthe ST and Amiga 
drive mechanism 


NEW LOWER PRICE 
i eae Mes only £89.95 "ais 


lecards 
Upgrading your PC to hard disk? Look no further, we offer the best prices 
on top quality hardcards. Thorough documentation supplied, low power 
tion, with free XTree file management software and Speedread. For 
PC1512/1640 users we supply hardcards tested and formatted, with 
our simple software installation pri lure. The best packages available! 


20 MEG...£229.00 32 MEG...£249.00 


for all Atari ST models 


only £24.95 


New Version 4 disk utilities for the ST, features include: protected software backup, 
featuring the new turbo nibbler, a faster and more powerful copier, which uses all avail 

drives & memory and includes 56 parameter options for handling a greater range of software; 
drive B boot to allow many programs to startup from drive B; organiser accessory providing 
many major disk management commands; extra format giving over 15% extra user storage 


gi 
area per floppy disk; fast backup; ramdisk accessory; undelete file; PLUS many more! 


5.25" disks 


gs in 50 cap box £22 
> in 100 cap box 


Fully guaranteed 


3.5" disks 


10..£11.95 in plastic case £1 
25..£27.95 in 40 cap case 
Fully guaranteed double 





Amstrad PC1512/1640/2086 


We offer a wide choice of Amstrad PCs with many upgrade options, including 
the very latest PC2086 range. For the hard disk option, check our ‘Evesham 
Upgraded Models’. Only the best will do - so we normally upgrade by means 
of a Western Digital Filecard, which includes XTree and SpeedRead software; 
however on single drive 1512/1640 models we can offer internal installations at 
the same price (leaving more expansion room but no upgrade opportunity for 
a 2nd floppy drive). We can provide on-site service contracts at timo of purc! 

- please ‘phone for details. Prices in lighter type exclude VAT. 


Free with 1512 models... Ability and 4 US Gold Games 








PC1640 Summer Promotion Pack 
Includes PC1640 DD with mono monitor, DMP4000 prec and software pack inc. 
Wordstar 1512, Supercalc 3.1 and Accounts Master DD £899.00 inc.VAT 
optional extras 


drive (720K) for 


: n ate models. 


Amstrad PPCs 


Low prices on all portable PCs - especially twin drive models 
prices in brackets are excluding VAT 
PPC512S EER £429.00 PPC640S aac) £549.00 
PPC512D £433.91) £499.00 PPC640D (£546.96) £629.00 


NEW! External 3.5" floppy drive (720K) to suit ANY Amstrad 1512/1640 
including DD and HD models! Uses no expansion slots . £114.95 


Central Point Software 
For all your PC disk management requirements 


tion Board... he ultimate solution to backing up copy-protected 

rare option. All the original features of the Option Board, Including the| 

ier product on the market, and can even transform any PC equipped 

it .! Raposa IBMMacintosh drive. Allows your PC to read and write to 
IMAC data disks easily through 


PRINTERS 


All prices include VAT, delivery and cable 


We use and recommend Star printers since they do 
offer an unbeatable combination of features. print 
quality. reliability and value. Make the 
decision - get it right with a Star prin 
special. all in, prices 

Star LC10 best-selling 144/36cps printer, 4 NLQ fonts, inc.2 extra ribbons free 

Star LC10 7-colour version of above printer, inc.2 extra black ribbons 

Star LC24 10 feature-packed mulifont 24 pin printer 

Star NB24-10 great value 24pin inc. cut sheet feeder + 2 extra 

Star NX-15 budget wide finter .. 

Star NB24-15 wide carr.version of NB24-10 inc. cut sheet feeder 

NEC P2200 budget 24pin. great valuo 168/56 ops 

Amstrad DMP31 DI good value 10° with serial/parallel interfaces 

Panasonic KXP1081 reliable budget 10" printer 120/24 

Panasonic KXP1124 great new sturdy 10" multifont 24pin printer 

Epson LX800 popular 10° 180/25 cps . 

Ren LQ500 good 24pin printer 1: cps.. 

n 120D good value 10° 120 cps . 


Citizen HQP-45 wide carriage 24pin printer - a bargain 


How to order 


Al ext day delivery S200 ena ^ [Evesham Micros Ltd 


‘Send 1@, P.O. or ACCESS/VISA details 
Phone with ACCESS/VISA details D rridge. street 


Ep eer bloc o 'availabiity FOE w WR 4SF 
sul to a -80.E. orcs 11 
call 6 , 9.30-5.30 
x: 339294 Fax 0388 768354 Tel: 0386 765500 
Also at: 1762 Pershore Rd.. Cotteridge, Birmingham, B30 3BH Tel: 021 458 4564 




















EN 
REVIEWS 











PC £24.99 dk 
Already out on C64, ST, Amiga 


First of the 1989 outings from Lucasfilm, and 
bringing with it a whole range of cut-down Indus- 
trial Light and Magic for the small screen. 

Along with Looking For Love, reviewed elsewhere in 
this issue, and all the recent Infocom adventures, this 
release just goes to prove that America takes its inter 
active entertainment seriously. That's not to say the 
subject matter can't be hilarious, just that it's light 
years ahead of the tired old D&D that passes for adven- 
ture over here. 


Zak's a reporter with the National Inquisitor, a Sunday 
Sport type paper. Reporter is probably the wrong term, 
since most of the stories are fictional, and so when Zak 
discovers that aliens have built a stupidity machine 
designed to reduce human IQs, no-one will believe him. 
That is except for three other nutters who offer to help 
him solve the game's dozens of puzzles, unmask the 
aliens and destroy the machine. 

You control Zak and command the other characters 
by constructing sentences with your mouse composed 
of the verbs and nouns on display. Movement of charac- 
ters is effected by clicking on Walk and pointing to 
where in the animation screen you want the character 
to move to. Punctuating the action are ‘cutscenes’ 
which provide clues and information about characters 
encountered 

As with all adventures, it's very important to pay 










CashCard 
phone bill 


C64 Zak: not bad graphics and sound 





















attention to every location and object/char- 
acter you come across. Unlike most other 
adventures, though, there's no real way you & 
or any of your colleagues can get killed: 
your only worry is the amount of cash you 
have in your pocket. 

The accent is firmly on exploring scenar 
ios and puzzles and enjoying the wacko 
humour. And wacko certainly is the word for 
the unfolding storyline. You only have to 
read the accompanying spoof newspaper to 
get the drift; Alien amusement parks found 
on Mars, two-headed squirrels, Bigfoots win 
ning records for non-stop kissing, microbus- 
es turning into space shuttles. 





The screen is divided into a message line at 
the top where data and conversation is dis 
played, and a sentence line at the bottom 
where you construct sentences that tell all 
characters what to do. This bottom area 
also displays an inventory, 

Between the two is the animation window, 
where a camera's eye view of proceedings 
is relayed. All action is punctuated by a great range of 
wipes, dissolves and pans, giving the whole game a 
filmic feel. Animation is fast and, even on a CGA card, 
sprite design and action hold up well 


The C64 version has a good standard of audiovisuals — 
with the ST and Amiga versions promising substantial 
improvements in the audio departments and superior 
visuals (or course!) 





Trouble in-store for our reporting hero as he confronts the Ed. 


Are you good (bad) enough to be a Sunday Sport type hack? 


































It's great to see a company releasing product which 
advances the scope of interactive fiction. Although the 
action is let down a little by the graphics and the almost 
unmentionable sound of the PC, the game is very funny, 
highly original and worth a look. Once Lucasfilm begin 
to transfer its film skills to disk there's no knowing 
where it'll all end. 


0000 





















Andy Storer 

















28 + NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 











TENSTAR PACK 


WORTH OVER £229! 











































The Amiga 500 is one of a new breed of technologically 
advanced computers, which are now emerging as the new 
standard for home computing, based around the new Motorola 
68000 chip. The A500 has 512K RAM and a 1Mbyte double 
Sided disk drive built-in. It can be connected directly to a wide 
range of monitors, or to a domestic TV set through a TV 
modulator. Designed with the user in mind, the A500 features a 
user friendly WIMP environment and comes supplied with a free 
mouse. And, when you buy your Amiga from Silica Shop, the 
UK's Not Amiga specialists, you will experience an after sales 
Service that is second to none, including a technical support 
helpline and free newsletters and price lists. Return the coupon 
below for our current information pack, which will give details of 
the Silica service and the very latest Silica Amiga offers. E&OE 


PHOTON PAINT PACK 


A500 Computer coc EE Cae E ute 
TV Modulator E | You some spectacular free gifts: First of alliwe are now iheluding 


SEA zb i à 1 I 
à D i oe : MASS 
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^ | | M INCLUDES 

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B - V ammo RES 























FREE! - IKARI WARRIORS - by Elite —- 












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PACK PRICE MCa £399 p. This pack features ten top Amiga titles which have a 
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10848 MONITOR PACK 


A500 Computer — £399.99 | iim Sica Shep, we wart to Amegas es 
1084S Colour Monitor £299.99 | | mae sure you get the best poro Ult Warrior £19.95 


deal possible. That is why we 







and can now claim to meet our customers requirements with an accuracy 
and understanding which is second to none Here are just some of the 
things we can offer you 


THE FULL STOCK RANGE: The largest range of Amiga 


related peripherals, accessories, books and software in the UK 


AFTER SALES SUPPORT: The statt at Silica Shop are 
dedicated to help you to get the best from your Amiga 


FREE NEWSLETTERS: Mailed direct to your home as 
Soon as we print them, featuring offers and latest releases. 


FREE OVERNIGHT DELIVERY: On all hardware orders. 
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SIDCUP (& Mail Order) 01-309 1111 
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OPEN: MON-SAT 9am -530pm LATE NIGHT: FRIDAY Sam - 7pm 
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Selfridges ( 1st floor), Oxford Street, London, W1A 1AB Do you already own a computer 
OPEN: MON-SAT 9am -600pm LATE NIGHT: THURSDAY 9am - 8pm If so, which one do you own? 

















IEREREUESESLIIO as E 
| The place for your questions and suggestions 


c 











Memory problem I 
I have a Sanyo 555-2 machine, which 
| have used for some time. | have 
become used to it, and it has proved 
to be very satisfactory. It was origi- 
nally 128K and | have updated by 
adding the 16 further memory chips 
provided by the makers so that it is 
now 256K. | have also put in a video 
board so that is now more or less 
IBM-compatible. 

| have recently started to learn C 
programming and would like more 
memory. At one time Sanyo had a 
video board which provided an extra 
256K, and they also sold a hard disk 
drive. Unfortunately, neither of these 
is available now. 

| would appreciate your comments 
(or those of fellow readers) on these 
or any other options that may be 
open to me: 
1, Fit larger chips. | have read about 
150ns chips. Would these fit in the 
same sockets as my present chips? 
Would they all have to be replaced? 
Where could | get them from? 
2. The Zortech compiler manual 
says: "fit a larger RAM disk". Is this 
something | could do myself? Could 
you suggest a source for the disk 
and what sort of cost might be 
involved? 
DW Wilcock, Oxford 
* Unless I'm mistaken, the Sanyo was 
one of the earliest "PC-compatibles’ which 
— unfortunately — wasn't very compatible 
at all. However, it does run MS-DOS and 
offered pretty good value for money. 

Unfortunately, being MS-DOS compati 
ble and PC-compatible are two entirely dif- 
ferent things, PC-compatibility means you 
can avail yourself of the enormous range 
of memory boards, video adaptors, hard 
disk drives, and other desirable peripher- 
als. As DW has discovered, the Sanyo 
doesn't qualify 

Expanding memory may be more diffi- | 


cult than you imagine, Fitting larger chips 
is a possibility, but you're obviously a little 
confused: the designation 150ns refers | 
to the speed of the chips, not their capac- 
ity. 

The first thing to do is to carefully 
peruse your manuals and find out if the 
Sanyo is capable of addressing 512K. It 
ought to be but designers have done 
stranger things. Next, find out the speed 
of your existing memory chips. 

You can do this by reading the legends 
printed on their tops. If you used 16 chips 
to add 128K of RAM, it sounds like you've 
got 64K-bit chips, eight of which provide | 
64k-bytes, They'll probably carry a legend 
something like 4464-12 or 4164-12, or | 
4164-15. The 64 part tells you they are | 
64K-bit chips, and the 12 stands for 120 
nanosecond, and 15 for 150 nanosec- | 
ond. 

Although it's possible to use “faster | 
memory chips, you'll be safer using | 
replacements of similar speeds. 

So, assuming your machine can| 
address 512K, and your chips are 150 | 
nanosecond DRAMs, you can try using | 
bigger memory chips. What you want are | 
256K-bit chips which will be designated | 
41256-15. (If your chips are 120ns, you | 
need 41256-12s, and so on) | 

On most PC-compatibles you need not | 
only the obvious eight chips but also a 
ninth for parity checking, but from what 
you say the Sanyo apparently doesn't. | 
Make sure. You'll need 16 (or 18) of | 
these to provide 512K. | 

These will cost about £8 or £9 each, 
depending on speed, and are available 
from most serious suppliers, but try Digi 
task on 0293 776688. 

On your second point, RAM disks are 
not usually physical objects but part of 
your main memory set aside for use as a 
Very fast disk drive. So this is simply | 
another aspect of your memory expan- | 
Sion problems. 

Finally, for practical as well as moral 
support, you probably ought to get in 
touch with the Sanyo MBC users group. 











Here's a useful tip for PC owners. To 
make a file containing the names of all 
your files (ie, to make a catalogue of 
disks) make sure that each disk is 
labelled, both physicaly and under 
DOS. 


Then, create the catalogue file by typ- 
ing DIR A: *.* > CATALOG.FIL. Then for 
your other disks, put each disk in turn 
into the B drive if you have one (or use 
DOS's disk-swapping facility if you have 
only one drive) and type DIR B:*.* >> 
CATALOG.FIL. 

The catalogue file can then be 
searched using 


ic filename and the disk it is on. 
Hugo Minney, Witton Gilbert, Durham 


a word processor, or S4. 
DOS's TYPE command, to find a specif- 


pe 


— 
ES 


Io 








Write to MH Syed, Wistaria, 53 Acacia | 
Grove, New Malden, Surrey, KT3 | 
3BP. | 

| 


TIP 

C64 coders | 
As each character has an ASCII value, the | 
character with the same value as the | 
required machine code operands can be | 
placed one after the other in a Basic line | 


| after a REM statement. For example: | 


1 POKE 770,21:POKE — 771,8:REM | 
[SPACEIMICBM+ILIICBMS]ICBMM] 
Type as normal up to the REM statement, | 
then to enter the code: 
Press [SPACE] then [Y], next the Com- | 
modore key and the [S] key and then the | 
Commodore key and the [M] key. 
The line must be the first 
line of the program. Do 
not put any spaces in 
the line other than the 
one after the REM. 
When you list the 
line it will look 
very different to 
when you typed 
it in, so if you 
make a mistake 


you can only 
change it before 
you list it. 


The two pokes tell 
the computer where 
to go if the [STOP] key 
is pressed. 
ISPACEIMICBM+] = 
JSRSA659 - initialise Basic 
ILIICBMSIICBMM] = JMPSA7AE - run 
J. Raybould, Chesterfield 








LR k. 


Memory problem II 

Many thanks for your wonderful mag- 
azine which has left the competition 
behind. | would be grateful if you 
could help me to understand some 
things about my computer. 

| have a Pioneer PX-7 MSX which 
has 32K RAM. When I switch it on ! | 
get a message on screen saying 
"28751 bytes free", which changes 
to "24450 bytes free" when the disk 
drive is connected. 

Why the difference, and why not 
"32000 bytes free"? 

Another question is, when | use the 
32K expansion RAM pack to make a 
total of 64K RAM, why do | get the 
same bytes free messages as above? 
A Munir, Thornton Heath, Surrey 
* To begin with, 32K is not 32000 bytes 
but 32,768 (each kilobyte equals 1024 





| bytes). So your free memory at power on 
is little less than 4K short of that. 


As to why, | don't know for sure in the 
case of the PX-7, but all computers pro- 
vide less free memory than they have 
total memory. The reason is simply that 
other things have to map into the memo- 
Ty space. 

For example, your Basic interpreter, 
and the computer's operating system, 
use up some of your precious memory. 
Also, screen displays use up at least 
1,000 bytes (40 x 25 characters), and 
more for higher resolution displays, or for 
colour screens. 

So your shortfall in free memory is not 
at all unusual (Commodore Amiga owners 
are even worse off — their free memory is | 
usually more than 100K short of the theo- 
retical 512K). 

Similarly, when you add a disk drive, | 
you lose roughly another 4K. Some of | 


this is probably the disk operating sys- 
tem, some of it will be buffer space. 

However, the situation with your expan- 
sion pack is more difficult to explain. The 
first question must be: are you sure it's 
working? If you have some software that 
you know for certain makes use of more 
than 32K of RAM then you can test it that 
way. Or you could write a Basic program 
to dimension a large array (200 x 200 
ought to do it). If Basic runs this, again 
your RAM expansion is working. 

The only other explanation may be that 
whoever wrote the PX-7 operating system 
didn't expect anyone to be using more 
than 32K of RAM, so the free memory 
messages don't reflect the true amount 
of memory in the 
system. 

















Win a sub! 


We want to hear your problems, but we also want helpful 
hints and tips. As well as the eternal glory of helping out 
your fellow sufferers, 
you could even scoop the weekly best-tip prize of a free 
26-issue subscription to this magazine! 

And remember, there's no waiting around for monthly 
publication dates. The best tips, and solutions to your 
problems will be in print before you can say Alan Sugar 
(please don't send SAEs for replies, we can only answer 


enquiries in print). 


So whether it's help offered or needed, write to: 
Tech Tips, New Computer Express, 


4 Queen Street, 


ST freeze 


ST owners whose favourite game doesn't 
have a pause mode may well be interest- 
ed in this handy little tip. 

First make sure you haven't got a print- 
er connected, then press [ALTERNATE] 
and [HELP] at the same time. Your com 
puter will then freeze up for approximate- 
ly 20 seconds while it works out why it 
can't send any data to the printer. 

This doesn't work with every program, 
but when it does it gives you that little bit 
of time to switch on the video, take the 
phone off the hook or rescue your leg 
from the jaws of your pet Doberman. 
Steve Baxter, Norwich 


Budget DTP 


Do you know of any good PD or 
shareware programs that would 
enable me to try out desktop publish- 
ing on a small scale without spending 
a fortune (| have an Amstrad 
PC1512)? 
lain Arnell, Portsmouth, Hants 
* DTP software is among the most com- 
plex you can buy: it needs to understand 
graphics and graphic actions like scaling 
and cropping; all about fonts and type- 
faces including proportional spacing; and 
it has to be easy to use, providing a com- 
prehensive array of command options 
including menus, key commands and 
mouse-control. 

And it had better be written in some- 


| thing fast - like pure machine code. 


That means no-one is likely to write a 
DTP program unless they've got a reason- 
able chance of getting some reward for 
their efforts. In other words, don't hold 
your breath waiting for suitable software 
to reach the public domain. 





30 ° NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS « 14 JANUARY 1989 








TECH TIPS 


HELP 











Your cheapest option at the moment is 
Timeworks Lite, a slightly cut-down ver- 
sion of the highly-regarded Timeworks 
DTP package, which sells for £49.95. It 
runs under GEM and provides most of 
the facilities you'll need (no laser printer | 
‘support, though). 

{t's available from Electric Distribution 
(0954 61258). 





Friendly Amiga 

Ever fancied getting a nice, personal wel- | 
come from your Amiga every time you | 
boot it up? Here's how. | 

When the Amiga starts up it automati- 
cally reads the STARTUP-SEQUENCE file 
in the S directory of the boot disk. This 
file contains a set of ordinary CLI com- 
mand lines like: 

ECHO "Workbench 1.2" 

This makes the Amiga echo the text in | 
quotes to the screen. | 
First, though, you'll need to make a 
copy of the Workbench disk, since the | 
original has no space for extra files. | 
Insert the copy, restart your Amiga, and | 

get to the CLI prompt as described. 

Now make some space by typing | 
DELETE UTILITIES ALL | 
DELETE DEMOS ALL 

You can now modify the startup pro- 
cess. At the CLI prompt type: 

ED S/STARTUP-SEQUENCE 

You are now in the (undocumented!) 
text editor, and can use the cursor and 
delete keys to modify the text on the | 
screen. 

Those of a jolly disposition can even 
make their Amiga talk to them. Simply 
press [RETURN] to open up a blank line 
at the start of the file, then type in the fol- 
lowing: 

SYSTEM/SAY ‘Greetings Master. Your 
slightest wish is my command.” | 
Then save the file by pressing [ESC] 
and typing [X] for eXit and [RETURN]. 
You're then back at the 1> CLI prompt. | 





* Amiga A500: Will it talk to you? 


Wait for the disk drive light to go out, 
then reboot your Amiga and...it speaks to | 
you! 

You can put any text you like inside the 
quotes of the SAY command and have 
any number of lines of SAY commands. 
Brian Templar, Sidmouth 





Star driver 
Having just bought a Star LC-10 
colour printer, | eagerly awaited the | 
reat colour print-outs that all the | 
reviews spoke so highly of. To my 
horror not an inkling (pun intended) 
of colour could | squeeze out of this 
impressive piece of equipment. 
Monochrome  printouts using | 
Degas (not Elite) were excellent but | 





was visualising Bugs Bunny in glori- 
ous Technicolor. 

Can you suggest where I can find a 
printer driver for the wonderful LC- 
10, or any art packages that would 
run the printer to it's full dumping 
facilities. 

Justin Basini, Thames Ditton, Surrey 


| * Another victim of the great printer driv- 


er saga. 

First, check your list of printer drivers 
in Degas. Although you're not likely to 
find the LC-10 (it's a recent printer and 
Degas is old software), you can try any 
driver for a colour printer. There's a rea- 
sonable chance that one of them will 
work (but it must be a colour printer driv- 
er). 

Second, get in touch with any of the 


| national ST user groups or public domain 


libraries — these are the best source of 
non-commercial software like printer 
drivers. 

Third, you could try the Cyber series 
from Antic (distributed by Electric Distri 
bution, tel 0954 61258). Part of the 
Series includes a library of printer drivers 
for a variety of printers including Star. 


TIPS 


| Amiga file handling 


Ribbons rejuvenated 

Here are some tips for the Amiga 500. 
As single-drive users know, to copy files 
from one disk to another you must first 
Copy them to RAM. For example 

To copy all the files in the "C" directory to 
another disk 

Copy C all ram 

then 

Copy ram: all mydisk: 

But | have RAM included in the path, so | 
also have some commands in RAM which 
| use for accessing other disks without 
inserting Workbench all the time. So to 
copy files from RAM to a disk means that 
the commands are copied too, which | 
don't want. To avoid this | do 

Makedir ram:store 

Then | lock or protect store to prevent it 
being deleted 

Lock ram:store 

Then to disk 

Copy ram:store all to mydisk: 

The | delete the files in store so that | can 
use it again 

Delete ram:store all 

Store itself is not deleted as it is locked. 
Type delete ram: all 

and it won't work as RAM is a device. 
Type delete ram:#? all and it will work. 

In issue 6 there was a tip about printer 
ribbons. Well something similar can be 
done with the ribbons of an Okimate 20 
printer, colour or black and white. When 
the ribbon is nearly finished, the used rib- 
bon is wound up on the left reel. It then 
pushes a lever and stops any further 
advance. To get that extra bit of ribbon, 
which can last quite a while, you must 
prise open the cartridge. It's quite easy — 
just insert a small screwdriver or some- 
thing into a hole in the side of the car- 
tridge and twist it a bit. When it's open, 
take the larger reel of ribbon off the plas- 
tic wheel and discard it. Tape the end of 
the remaining ribbon onto the wheel, wind 
it on a few turns, and that should do it. 

| have lots of Fish and PD disks. If any- 
one wants a copy, just send a disk plus a 
Stamp for return postage. 

P.S. Can anyone send me a printer driver 
for the NEC Pinwriter P2200. Ive tried 
lots of drivers and none are good enough 
for graphics as they're all for 9-pins. 
George Garven, Kilmarnock 











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50p voucher. Valid for orders above £10 


This voucher may be used as 50p part payment on any order totalling over £10 
from a participating advertiser in New Computer Express. You simply fill in the 
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Only one voucher per order is allowed. This voucher and its accompanying 
order must be received by the advertiser before 9am February 13, 1989 


uz---------2---------2-2--------. 


£10 voucher. Valid for orders above £200 


This voucher may be used as £10.00 part payment on any order totalling over 
£200 from a participating advertiser in New Computer Express. You simply fill in 
the details below and send it off with your order. 


four name 





\ddress — = THE 








elephone (if possible) 





em (s) purchased 





Only one voucher per order is allowed. This voucher and its accompanying 
rder must be received by the advertiser before 9am February 13, 1989 










PRIE 





€ The Express voucher scheme is a 
special launch promotion to encourage 
you to buy New Computer Express regu- 
larly. 


@ It offers you savings of up to £15 
when you buy goods through the maga- 
zine. 


€ The vouchers are not limited to spe- 
Cific items — you can save on any pur- 
chase from one of the participating 
advertisers. 


€ Most mail order 
advertisers in this mag- 
azine are taking part in 


the scheme - just look VOUCHERS 
for this sign. 


We Accept 











@ Remember. The use of just one 
voucher will more than recoup the price 
of the magazine. 


THE FIVE SIMPLE RULES 


1. Express vouchers can be used to obtain discounts on purchases 
of goods advertised in this issue of New Computer Express, provid- 
ed that they are bought directly from an advertiser taking part in the 
scheme. The vouchers are valid only for those advertisements which 
say "We Accept Express Vouchers". 

2 Each voucher entitles you to a discount at the voucher's face 
value, provided that your overall order level is higher than the figure 
indicated on the back of the voucher. 

3. To use a voucher, simply enclose it with your discounted payment 
when you order. You may use only one voucher in any one order. 

44. The order including the voucher must be received by the advertis- 
er before the closing date printed on the voucher. 

5. You must fill in the details requested on the voucher. 








LEARNING CURVE 














The word 


Word processing is more 


than just bashing out words - 
on screen. Peter Worlock 





explains the subtleties, — 
complexities and infinite 








varieties of wp features — 


ust about every business PC in the world 
gets used for word processing at some time, 
and many business PCs do nothing else. 

And at home, just about everyone writes 
something every now and then — and you don't 
have to be an author or journalist. Employees in 
all kinds of business occasionally have 
reports to write, teachers and lecturers write " 
up course material students write essays, 
and we all write letters — to magazines and ^ 
newspapers, begging letters to the bank, tor- 
rents of abuse to credit card companies etc. 

For most writers, the first requirement is a 
printer. Although it is possible to send floppy 
disks, we're still a long way from the paper- 7 
less existence that computer manufacturers 
used to talk about. The second requirement $ 
is some suitable software. 

There are WP programs costing several 2 
hundred pounds, and there are others in pub- 
lic domain libraries that will cost little more 
than the cost of a blank disk. But if all you're 
doing is putting words on paper, via the com- 
puters screen and memory, why the gulf in 
pricing? 

As always, you get what you pay for, and 
although all word processing programs will let 
you compose and print a bit of text, the ease and 
speed with which you can do it varies enormous- 
ly. 


The basics 


Just about all programs will let you type at the 
keyboard and show you what you've typed on the 
screen.. By various combinations of control keys, 
menus and mouse actions, you will be able to edit 
what you have written; delete some words or sen- 
tences; insert new material; correct mistakes; 
break sentences and paragraphs into shorter 
units; or join existing portions of the text. 

Generally, you can get your text reading right, 
and looking good. You can then save it to 
tape or disk for future reference, and/or 
print out your document on your printer. 

At this stage, what you're gaining over 
using a typewriter is the ability to edit, 
revise and correct without having to use a 
lot of Tippex or using up reams of paper in 
re-typing the same text over and over. 

However, WP programs also automate a 
lot of minor aspects of writing. For example, 
on a typewriter a bell rings to let you know 
you're getting near the end of a line. This is 
so that you can work out whether your next 
word or two will fit, or whether you should 
start a new line. WP programs handle this 
automatically through a facility called word 
wrap. 

Also on a typewriter, it's possible to get so 
engrossed in your work you suddenly find 
yourself typing off the end of the paper, pro- 
ducing ugly pages in the process. With a 








word processor this ceases to be a problem 
because the software lets you put page breaks 
wherever you want. 

These and other aspects come under the head- 
ing of document presentation — how your text will 
appear on the finished pages. When using a type- 
writer you have to bear these things in mind as 
you type, which can be extremely distracting. 
And mistakes in typing can cause you a lot of | 
extra work. 

With the word processor you can concentrate on 
what you're writing, leaving the presentation side 
until after you've finished creating the text. 


Paying for power | 
As you move up the price scale you're paying for 
extra power. These extra features fall into a num- 


| specify the misspelling and the correct version, 


| screen by display effects like inverse characters, 





ber of different categories. 





» "There's te excuse for poorly write, badly spelled text." 


Some are additional controls that make using | 
the software easier. For example, you find more 
ways of moving around your document. Obviously 
you can move forward and backwards a letter at a 
time, or up and down a line at a time. But more 
flexibility makes a program easier to use, so some 
packages provide ways of moving by word, sen- 
tence, paragraph, screen and page. 

Other enhanced features include more powerful 
editing facilities. Among the most useful here are 
cut & paste, and search & replace. 

Cut & paste allows you to mark a block of text, 
which can be anything from a single word up to 
several pages. Such a block can then be deleted 
(much quicker than deleting a character at a 
time), or cut from one place and pasted into the 





Easier can be better 
It has been said that word processing can make writing easier, but it 
can't make writing better. In fact it can, in certain ways. 
For example, even the best writers have certain blind spots when 
it comes to spelling, and poor spelling tarnishes your image as a 
writer. So an automatic spelling checker can do wonders for your 
image — as well as being easier than reaching for the dictionary 
(usually buried on a distant bookshelf) and looking up the correct 
spelling — which can be difficult if you don't know how to spell the 
word in the first place! 
An automatic thesaurus can add even more gloss to your printed 
documents. If you're struggling for just the right word, a quick key- 
press will bring up a range of possibilities, saving you long stretches 
of agonised staring at the screen. Or if you find you've used the 
word "awful" too many times in your letter to the credit card compa- 
ny, the thesaurus will point out that you could also use "unpleasant", 
“appalling” and "atrocious", not to mention “terrible” and "ghastly". 





document somewhere else (hence the name), or 
copied without deleting the original block and 
pasted elsewhere. 

Search & replace is an extremely useful tool, 
especially if you create long documents. Imagine a 
multi-page business report, or an essay in which — 
when you thought you'd finished — you find you've 
misspelled a key name. With search & replace you 


and the software then automatically goes through 
your document correcting every instance of the 
mistake. 

Other features fall into the category of document 
presentation, starting with the ability to use basic 
type variations like bold, italic and underlined 
type. Some primitive WP packages use special 
codes which appear on screen but not in the 
printed document, which means that you can be 
misled as to how your printed pages will look. 

A better solution is to show such effects on 


or by using different colours. Best of all are those 
packages (usually on the ST, Amiga and Macin- 
tosh although also found on the PC) which actual- 
ly use bold, italic, or underlined type on screen. 

Also in the category of document presentation 
are headers and footers. These two devices are 
more or less identical except that, as their names 
suggest, one appears at the head of a page, and 
the other at the foot. Headers and footers are pre- 
set pieces of text — often only one line but some- 
times more — which are to appear on every 
page. They can include your name, address 
and telephone number, for example. Or a run- 
ning title, or chapter and page numbers. 

One feature that not everyone needs in 
their WP program is a word counter, but you'll 
often see a package panned in computer mag- 
azines because it doesn't have one. The rea- 
son for this is that professional writers live 
and breathe numbers of words. In the case of 
freelance writers, you get paid by the word so 
it's vital to know how much you've written. 

But even salaried writers whose pay is 
secure need to know how much they've writ- 
ten. Journalists and authors who turn in work 
that is consistently longer or shorter than an 
editor wants become very unpopular. 


Designer docs 

Any word processor worth the name will let 
you produce neat, properly written documents. 
With the usual clutch of editing facilities at your 
disposal there's little excuse for poorly written, 
badly spelled text. 

However, the more advanced WP programs go 
much further, allowing you to turn out pages that 
are things of beauty, a joy to gaze upon. 

* Multiple fonts: Although too many fonts are like 
too many cooks, the ability to use one or two font 
changes in a document really lifts your pages out 
of the ordinary. However, being able to do so 
depends on your printer having the facility, and 
your WP software being able to drive your printer. 
(We've talked at painful length about this in the 
last two instalments of the Learning Curve.) 

* Multiple columns: The ability to create 
text in two or more columns, newspaper 
style, is not one that you'll want to employ in 
your business letters. But in reports it can be 
useful, and a good word processor with this 
facility may save you the cost of a desktop 
publishing program. 

* Imported graphics: This is a definite plus 
for many word processing applications. In 
business you can import charts and graphs, 
others can use drawings and sketches to 
illustrate a point, or you can create your own 
headed stationery, or simply brighten up a 
personal letter. And again, if your WP soft- 
ware can do this, you may not need a dedi- 
cated DTP program. 

= Footnotes: One for the academics, and not 
to be confused with footers. A footnote is an 
explanatory piece of text at the bottom of 
the page which contains the thing being 
explained. @ 








NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS * 14 JANUARY 1989 « 35 


ATARI ST & AMIGA BOOKS 


ABACUS 
ST for Beginners. 

ST Basic Training Gi 

ST Tricks and Tips. 

Basic to © 

GEM Reference Guide 

ST Machine Language 

Atari ST Internals ....... 

Midi Programming St 

3D Graphics Prog. on ST 

ST Disk Drives 

Amiga for Beginners. 

Amiga Basic Inside & Out 

Amiga Machine Language 

Amiga Tricks & Tips... 
Amiga Disc Drive inside and out’. 


OTHER ST BOOKS 
Concise 68000 Prog. Ref. 
Using ST Basic (new ed.) 
Mastering Sound & Music 
Atari ST Explored 

Basic Source Book (rev Bj 
1001 Things to do with S 


COMPUTE 
First Book of Atari ST. 
ST Programmers Guide .. 
ST Sound and Graphic. 
Kids & The Atari S 
ST Applications 2 
More ST lications 
ST Tech Ref Guide Vol 1 
ST Tech Ref Guide Vol 2 
ST Appl Guide: Prog in C 
ppl. Guide: Prog. in 
Elementary Atari ST. 
Advanced Amiga Basic 
Inside Amiga Graphics. " 
Amiga DOS Reference Guide. 
Amiga Applications .. 


GFA BASIC PRODUCTS 
GFA Basic V 2.0. 
GFA Basic Compiler. 
GFA Vector. 
GFA Basic V 3.0. 
GFA Companion 
GFA Artist. 
Graphics & Sound (Tabs) ..... GFA Draft... 
Advanced GFA Basic Book 

ST & AMIGA BOOKS Advanced GFA Basic disk. 
First Steps in 68000 GFA Basic Quick Ref. Guide. 

GFA Training Reeboot Camp 
MC 68000 Prog. Ref. Manual Program in GFA Basic 
Learning C: Prog Graphics. GFA Draft Plus 











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36 © NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 14 JANUARY 1989 





YOUR FORMAT 


MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS 





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CLUBCLUB« ;CLUBCLUBCLUBCLUB 
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New Writers Start Here 

Anyone who starts reading the ST column 
from the bottom upwards will have noticed a | 
new name down there this week. Richard 
Monteiro has gone on to 
other things and I have 
stepped into his shoes. From 
now on all matters ST will be 
dealt with by me, and forgive. 
me if I occasionally get excit- 
ed but this is the man who 
thought the Dragon 32 was a 
pretty neat machine when it 
first came out. It became my 
first computer, and I can still 
remember paying eight quid 
for a Space Invaders cassette 
~ as published by Microdeal! 
Imagine how worked up I get 
these days when I slip a copy 
of its Goldrunner into the ST's 
drive. 

T love an arcade game as much as the next 
computer freak, but I bought the ST about a | 
year ago because of my addiction to adven- | 
ture games. I was writing an adventure col- | 
umn at the time, and it seemed that all the 
exciting new releases from the likes of Level 9 
and Magnetic Scrolls were coming out on the 
ST first - and I had to sit round and twiddle 
my digits till the 8-bit versions rolled off the | 
production lines. Not to mention games like 
Bureaucracy, Trinity and Dungeon Master | 


So it was down to Silica Shop I went, where 
I pretended to be a journalist and they gave 
me a 10 per cent discount. From then on I was 
hooked. Friends were invited round and 
encouraged to drool at the graphics, but fun- 
nily enough what impressed most people was 
not the whizz-bang arcade games but the 
speed and all-round friendliness of a database 
program: Superbase Personal. Td got this to 
keep tabs on my large file of adventure clues 
and solutions, and was beginning to realise 
just what a versatile machine I had. 

l next fell under the spell of Desktop 
Publishing, and reviewed Ataris DTP package 





in the only proper manner ~ by not only writ- 
ing the review but also laying out the pages 
myself with Fleet Street Publisher. I ran them 
off on the laser printer to see them incorporat- 
ed into the magazine, The Wordsmith, and 
just about holding their own in quality with 
the much pricier Apple package that produced 
the rest of the magazine. 

Tm breaking one of the cardinal rules of 
journalism, the one that says ‘Don't talk about 
yourself, just so that you know who's going to 
be on this page in future, and that my rela- 





that I'd never be able to play at all. 


Power to the People 


Indeed, Sir Uncle Clive's little black rubbery 
thing brought lots of pleasure to lots of people, 
But let's get back to computers. 

The first Spectrum (and mine is still going 
‘strong after six years) generated a great inter- 
| est in home micros, and gave the computing 
power of the time to a lot of people at a price 
they could afford. Small software houses grew 
up, and some others, still going strong, never 
did grow up. User groups were formed, com- 
puter fairs began to happen, computer 


tionship with the ST qualifies as Serious 
Love Affair and not merely a One-Night 
Stand. I bought my first computer because 
1 thought I might be able to write an arti- 
cle about home computers for a general- 
interest magazine. Now, five books and 
hundreds of articles later, there comes a 
computer on which Im not only going to 
be writing a book but also laying out the 
pages and publishing it myself, Now that's 
what you call a powerful machine! 


The Art of the Matter 
There's no doubt that the ST's playing its 
part in developing computer art as an art 
form, as anyone whos seen the work of 
award-winning sci-fi artist David Hardy 
would agree. And Geoff Quilleys latest 
graphic beauties in the Fish! adventure 
are. well, just brill! Both artists use the 
ST, and rumour has it that my hero Terry 
Greer is about to burst forth with some 
stunning work that he's been beavering 
away on for yonks. 

But does anyone want to hire an excel- 






















ability to do whatever you want it to do: art, 











music, running a business, producing a maga- | lent ST artist? Linda Wright is someone 
zine or just working as a games machine. who I know only as the author of several 

Because it's the affordable 16-bit machine, | adventure games on the Spectrum and 
the power of the ST will Amstrad. Then the other week she sent 







me one of those little blue disks and asked 
me what I thought of the graphics shed 
done on it? Stunning, was what I thought 
of them. Almost of Geoff Quilley standard, 
and thats high praise indeed. They includ- 
ed some beautiful rural scenes, and some 
pretty nasty stuff too, just right for a 
creepy adventure. 

Anyone looking for a first-rate artist 
need look no further. Just write to 19 Briar 
Close, Nailsea, Bristol BS19 10G. And no, 
Im not on a commission. This is pure 
altruism. There might be some mote in a 
year's time. Watch out for it. 

Mike Gerrard 







a good DTP or page-layout program, do all the 
work on disk, get the disks laser-printed by a 
bureau for a few pounds a page and hand the 
rye al eos 
d n d Yous 2C AK ood V and 
pay the printers bill of several hundred 

Well, yes, I mean... OK, well in theory you can 



























UPDATE 
So ee 


Join the Professionals 

As its the new year, let's forget all the yuppy 
jokes about Filofaxes and concentrate instead 
on how useful Portex can be. In the last cou- 
ple of years this product has impressed more 
than most on the PC, because its quite simply 
very useful. It combines a pocket organiser 
with a computer diary, database and word 
processor, so you can store and update most 
of the personal information you need to keep, 
and print it out directly onto organiser paper. 

It's designed very logically and works with 
9-pin or 24-pin printers. Its intelligent enough 
to sort addresses by company name and still 
display contacts as the lead item in each 
address, and it will print on address labels 
just as happily as organiser pages 

The best thing of all is that Portex has just 
been reduced by £50 to £49.95, making it 
more affordable. This has a secondary benefit 
for Showering Business Systems, its creators, 
in establishing a differential between the 
original package and Portex Professional. The 
new program, coming in at £149.95, includes 
a number of added features like an autodialler 
for your modem, with stopwatch and call log- 
ging, a desk calculator, password protection, 
foreign language support, filtering, and key- 
board macros. 

The most valuable feature of Professional to 
dedicated Portexers, though, is its ability to 
Tun memory resident. This means that you 
can call up addresses, diary dates or whatev. 
er from within other programs. You can also 
upgrade from Portex to Professional for £49. 
Showering can be contacted on 01 922 8821 





* Francis Showering, MD of Showering Busi- 
ness Systems, modelling the latest in comput- 
erised organisers for people with specially- 
modified suit pockets 


PM vs PS 

In a surprise move (well I was surprised, any- 
way) IBM and Microsoft have offered to 
license GPI — the graphics engine at the core 
of its new Presentation Manager user inter- 
face - to printer manufacturers. 

There appear to be two reasons for this 
move. Firstly, licensing should boost sales of 
OS/2 micros, which are ideally suited to run. 
ning Presentation Manager, and secondly it 
will put PM firmly into competition with 
Adobe's PostScript graphics language, which 
is currently the industry leader. This is more 
confusing as last year IBM gave Adobe a leg 
up by endorsing PostScript for its own users. 

So what are PostScript and GPI, anyway? 
They are graphics description languages 
















By any other name 
Do you have trouble naming text files? - 1 
know | do. There are so many different let- 
ters you can use, and it's only too easy to 
forget the words you thought up only a few 









which the file was created, two for the day 
and two for the month - the example is for 
the third of January. The three characters 
of the filetype are used to describe the 
type of document, in this case a column, 
but LET for letter or REP for report would 













our 
sister magazine PC Plus supplied one on 
its March '88 SuperDisk. You can easily 






i 
i 
i 
H 
i 






i 
: 
| 
š 
f 





Computer Express using NCE*." or all 
files January with 2777??01.*. 
is what to do with 






which can hold details of a page layout and 
its content in a more compact form than a 
complete bit-map of a screen or a 300 x 300 
dpi laser printer page. If the printer has its 


own PostScript or GPI interpreter, it can turn 
the details back into a bit map for printing, 
while the computer to which it's connected 
gets on with something else. 

The penalty, currently, is the extra cost of 
the interpreter and license fee in an ‘intelli 
gent printer of this type. 

An extra twist to the tale is that Adobe has 
recently released Display PostScript, most 
notably on Steve Jobs NEXT super-micro. 
This is a version of the same graphics lan 
guage, but designed to run computer screens 
rather than printers. The advantage of using 
the same description language for both is that 
files are completely compatible between 
screen and printer and you then get true 





| WYSIWYG. 


Presentation Manager, designed originally 
as a front end for OS/2, presumably has these 
dual-functions built in from the start. 

It remains to be seen, of course, if Presenta- 
tion Manager and GPI, which have been a 
long time coming, are free of bugs. 


PCs on PCs 

If you're looking for an unusual application for 
your PC or have an interest in electronic 
design and construction, you'll probably want 
to know about a new book from TAB Press 
called How to Draw Schematics and Design 
Circuit Boards with Your IBM-PC. Its basically 
two documented BASICA programs which let 
you design circuit schematics and pcb layouts 
on your PC. 

You can also buy a disk with the programs 
and sample libraries of electronic components 
from the same source. Contact TAB Software 
Department, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17294- 
0850. The book is priced at $13.95 

Simon Williams 






















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For BBC B/B+/MASTER with SWR 
Disk 5.25 40 track 


(80t available, specify) 
[x7 Pec 
Cheques /Postal Order: 


BEEB SOFTWARE, 
21 Dirdene Gardens, Epsom, Surrey KT17 4AZ 



































JOHNS COMPUTER STORE 


HOME AND BUSINESS SYSTEMS 


Full Range Of Commodore PC's In Stock 
Commodore Amiga A500 - £379.00 inc VAT 
Atari 520 STFM Super Pack - £359.00 inc VAT 

Phone for details of all stock 


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93 GRAHAM STREET, AIRDRIE, SCOTLAND ML6 6DE 
TELEPHONE: 0236 47097 








VEOSTE 
EXPRESS 
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NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS e 14 JANUARY 1989 « 37 


16-BIT SPECIALISTS 


With FREE Television Modulator, Mouse, 35 Top 
Games inc. Art of Chess, Barbarian, 
Buggy Boy, Mercenary, Ikari 
Warriors, Insanity Flight, and any 
more! Photon Paint’, Amiga Tutorial, 
Workbench V1.3, and Amiga BASIC 
disks, + 2 Manuals, 


AMIGA 500 
SUPER PLUS PACK 

Only £399 

(Inc. VAT) 


With FREE TV Modulator, Mouse, Mouse Mat, 
Photon Paint", Amiga Tutorial, Work 
bench V1.3, Amiga BASIC disks, + 2 


Manuals. 


AMIGA 500 
ECONOMY PACK 
Only £369 
(Inc VAT) 

AMIGA 500 + 1084 STEREO MONITOR AND SUPER PLUS PACK 
ONLY £625 (Inc VAT) 
COMMODORE PC-1 


£310 + VAT 


With FREE Mono Monitor, Able One-integrated 
Spreadsheet, Database and Word Processor, 10 
Blank Disks, GW-Basic V2.3, MS-DOS V2.3. 


OTHER HARDWARE 


Philips CM 8833 Stereo Colour Monitor inc. Lead Amiga/ST 
Commodore 1084 Stereo Colour Monitor inc. Lead Amiga/ST 
Seikosha SP-180 Printer nc Lead Amiga/ST 

Citizen 120-D Printer inc. Lead Amiga/ST 

Star LC-10 Printer inc. Lead Amiga/ST 

Star LC-10 Colour Printer inc. Lead Amiga/ST 

CAX 354 Amiga Cumana Disk Drive with on/off Switch 

CSA 354 Atari ST Cumana Disk Drive 


PERIPHERALS 
Mouse Mat (Economy) £2.99p 
Amiga 500 Dust Cover 
Parallel Printer Cable 


Mouse Mat (tus) 5 
£5.95p 50 Lockable Disk Box 
£7.95p — A500 Modulator Shifter 


GAMES SOFTWARE 


£1795p Menace (Amiga S/T), 
f1595p Thunder Blade (Amiga/ST) 


AMIGA BOOKS 


Motorola 68000 Programmers Reference Manual (Motorola) 

1001 Things To Do With Your Amiga (Tab - NEW!) 

Amiga for Beginners (Abacus) > 

Kickstart Guide to the Amiga (Ariadne) 

Kids and the Amiga (Compute!) 

Elementary Amiga BASIC (Computel) 

Amiga Machine Language (Abacus) 

Amiga Programmers Guide (Compute!) 

‘Amiga Tricks and Tips (Abacus) 

Amiga DOS Reference Guide (Compuiel) 

Amiga DOS - Inside & Out (Abacus - NEWI) 

Inside Amiga Graphics (Compute!) 

First Book of the Amiga (Compute!) 

Amiga Applications (Compute!) 

Advanced Amiga BASIC (Computel) 

Amiga BASIC - Inside & Out (Abacus) 

The Amiga Microsoft BASIC Programmer's Guide (Scott: Foresman) 
Amiga Machine Language Programming Guide (Compute! : 
Amiga User's Guide to Graphics, Sound, Telecom (Bantam) 
Becoming an Amiga Artist (Scott-Foresman - NEW). 

Using Deluxe Paint Il (Compute!) 

Learning C- Prog. Graphics on Amiga & Atari St (Computel) (Dj 
Inside the Amiga with C (Sams) 

68000 Assembly Language Programming (McGraw-Hill) 

Amiga Disk Drives - Inside & Out (Abacus - NEW!) 

68000 Assembly Language (Addison-Wesley - NEWi) 

Amiga Hardware Reference Manual (Addison-Wesley) 

Amiga Intuition Reference Manual (Addison-Wesley) 

Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Exec (Addison-Wesley) 
‘Amiga DOS Manual (Bantam) 

Programming the 68000 (Sybex) 

Programmers Guide to the Amiga (Sybex) 

Amiga Programmers Handbook (Sybex) 

‘Amiga Programmers Handbook, Vol 2 (Sybex) 3 

Amiga System Programmer's Guide (Abacus - NEW) 

Amiga ROM Kernel Ref. Manual: Libs & Devices (Addison-Wesley) 


£6.99p 
£7.95p 
£9.95p 


Chronoquest (Amiga/ST) 


£11.95p 
Lombard Rally (Amiga/ST) 


£14,95p 


£24 95p 
£32.95p 


OTHER BOOKS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST - PLEASE TELEPHONE 0706 43519 
* Photon Paint may be replaced with either Deluxe Paint 1 or Game at any time. 
All offers are subject to availability and may change at any time. E & EO 

Add £6 for Two Day Courier Delivery for AII Hardware Items. Disk Drives, 

“Software and Boo 


Book prices are inclusive of P&P. 
EN ACCESS/VISA OR MASTERCARD [exe] 


ORDERS/ENQUIRIES TEL. 0706 43519 


NEW SHOWROOM NOW OPEN! -Come and have a Demo at: ist Floor 
(Phone first please) Drake House, 160 Yorkshire Street, 


Rochdale, Lancs. 

Hours of Business - 9.30 am to 6 pm 
Mon - Sat 

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outside hours 





SEND ALL MAIL ORDERS TO: 16-Bit Software, Dept J1, 24 Brankfield 


Lane, Rochdale, Lancs., OL11 5RJ 





38 + NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS e 14 JANUARY 1989 





YOUR FORMAT 


MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS a i x9 S HEU UEM LE 














AMIGA BLIFZ 


J 
J 


Commodore on top of the World 
According to one of the leading market 
research organisations, Commodore is emerg- 
ing as Europe's second largest supplier of 
computer hardware, second only 

to the mighty IBM corpora- 

tion. 

Dataquest, the 
research group in 
question, reported 
that sales of the 
Amiga range of 
computers are boom- 
ing and Commodore's 
range of PC compatibles 
are also in great demand. 

According to Dean Barrett, UK 
marketing manager, first quarter profits to 
September 30 1988 were up by 92 per cent to 
£9.6 million compared to the same period the 
previous year. Much of this rise can almost 
certainly be credited to the rise in popularity 
of the Amiga. 


See the Light! 

Graphics have always been the Ami- 
ga's most powerful facility but of all the 
different graphic applications and tech- 
niques available, Ray Tracing must 
surely be one of the most popular. 

Ray Tracing is one of those applica- 
tions revolutionised by the arrival of 
the Amiga, and already several heavy 
weight packages exist ~ including the 
now famous Sculpt 3D (and now Sculpt 4D!) 
and TurboSilver. 

The latest arrival on the scene is a package 
called Opticks, distributed in this country by 
the Amiga Centre Scotland (031 557 4242) | 
Taking everything with a pinch of salt, Incog. 
nito, the American producer, claims that the 
package is the most powerful ray-tracing pro- 
gram of its time. 

The program uses a flowchart-like menu 
system which takes you step-by-step through 








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i 


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if 
E 


7 planes in depth (youll need a frame buffer for 


®) 
L 4 











| ITEM 


key! 





the usually complicated process of designing 
three dimensional scenes. Other powerful fea- 


tures include comprehensive surface mapping 
PAclities, generation of pictures of upto 24 bit- 






those though!) and the ability to import 
graphic objects from the popular VideoScape 
3D. Contact the Amiga Centre Scotland for 
further details. 






What! Another Elite Cheat?! 
Yep, another cheat for Firebird's classic space 
opera Elite. The man to blame for this little 
beauty is a certain Nick Taylor who is a regu- 
lar reader of Express and, in particular, Ami- 
gaBLIT (wise chap!) 

This tip allow you to modify most of 
the attributes of your galactic comman- 
der with a handy ‘hack’ screen kindly 
provided by Firebird but until now hid- 
den from view. This hack screen lets 
you modify the individual bytes that 

determine the status of your comman- 
der and his ship. 

To access this handy screen, when 
youre asked to enter the code to enter the 
game, enter SARA and then once prompted a 
second time, enter the correct code to enter 
the game. When prompted "Load New Com: 
mander", type 'N and then press the ‘Help’ 
key and you will find yourself in the Elite 
hacker screen. 


Message Port 

















You will be prompted for the byte to change. 
and then the new value to be assigned to that 
byte. By changing the values of particular 
bytes, you can customise your ship and your 
status. Once you've finished being under: 
handed, simply press the ‘Escape’ key and 
youre away. Below is a table of the major 
bytes. 


BYTETOCHANGE NEW VALUE 

Missiles 2 Not more than 4 
Large Cargo Bay — 23 o 
ECM System u o 
Fuel Scoops 2A o 
Escape Capsule 2D 0 
Energy Bomb Tz o 
Extra Energy Unit 31 01 
Docking Computers 32 o 
Galactic HyperSpace 35 0 
Retro Rockets 3A o 
ECM Jammer ac o 
Cloaking Device 3E o 
Unhappy Refugees — 88 or 
Thargoid Document 8C o 

Rating 

(Harmless to Elite) 97 007008 
Fugitive 9 or 
Offender 9 o 
Loadsamoney 18 FF 
19 FF 

1A FF 

1B FF 


A word of warning when hacking away. The 
value of byte number 21 must never be set to 
a value greater than four or the machine will 
complain bitterly in the way it knows best — 
by crashing. 

Other attributes, such as your ship's laser 
type, can also be changed by modifying the 
value of the particular byte; but I'l leave that 
for you to discover. Experimentation is the 


Jason Holborn 



































Spec-ted soon 
It's encouraging to see us Spectrummers arent | 
being left out of all the fun in these days of 16- 
bit mega-games. Some of the ST and Amiga 
titles which have turned you a shade of envi- 
ous green at a hundred yards are due for con 
version to our not-so-humble computer. 
Probably the most drool-inducing title for 
me is Carrier Command. The original ST ver- | 
sion received huge critical acclaim and used 
up whole books of reviewers’ ‘good game 
phrases. It's an innovative mix of simulation, 
strategy and shootem-up as you take the 
helm of the ACC Epsilon, an advanced aircraft. 
carrier with a tastyl selection of weaponry. | 


In the dark 





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Jorome 


4 


I have had a short blast on a friend's ST 
(dont worry, I washed my hands afterwards) 
and despite being determined not to like it, 
after a few minutes play I was hooked. Make 
no mistake, Carrier Command wont be con- 
verted without a struggle. Super-fast 3D filled 
graphics, multiple viewpoints and a playing 
area which makes almost everything else look 
postage stamp sized are not going to be easily 
fitted into 48K. 

Realtime Software was put on the case and 
if anyone can do it, these are the guys. 
Remember, they've produced classics like 3 D 
Starstrike and Starglider in the past. 

Preview versions look impressive, but at the 
end of the day a game's worth can only be 





gu 


judged by how it hangs together and plays as 
a whole. Due out at the end of January, I want 
to be first in the queue to see how CC fares. 

Also due on the Speccy screen in 89 is Star- 
glider II. This was another 3D filled graphics 
mega game, and a sickeningly good one at 
that. It came in just after Carrier Command in 
the "Express Greats of '88' feature (issue 7/8) 
and in my worthless opinion that's about right. 

It relied more on visual brilliance than 
gameplay, which hardly bodes well for a Spec- 
trum conversion. Not many details yet, save 
that its likely to consist of wire-frame graphics 
rather than filled 3D ones. 

In its 16-bit incarnation, Xenon was arcade 
quality. It had beautiful, gleaming chrome 
structures and finely shaded aliens. On the 
Speccy, everything looks decidedly blue. The 
demo version I played was smooth and quite 
addictive, but on the whole it's a fairly unre- 
markable horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-up. 

Other titles set to make the transition from 
16-bit to 8-bit are Captain Blood, a graphically 
superb space opera, and Eliminator, a 3D 
scrolling blaster from John Phillips (of Nebu- 
lus fame). 

The fact that so many seemingly 
risky and difficult conversions are 
being attempted really does show the 
commercial clout the Spectrum's still 
got. 


Come again? 

Jet Set Willy, the game that stunned 
your granny some time in the prehis- 
toric days of computing and gave plen- 
ty of opportunity for double entendre 
jokes, is back on the shelves, thanks to 
Mastertronic. 

If you admit to buying this one first 
time around, youre really going to 
show your age! Anyone too young to 
remember it need only know that its 
one of the forerunners of the whole 
platforms and ladders genre. JSW has 
got a lot to answer for. 


Spiritual exercise 

Whilst most other companies have 
abandoned Speccy owners of an adven- 
turous persuasion, Level 9 deserves a 
hefty pat on the back for unparalleled 
support. Having just about exhausted 
the possibilities as far as gnomes are 
concerned, its next game, called Spook, 
sees you play a ghost trying to avenge 
his murderer. Wacky or what? 


Speccy Mac emulator... 

I have just heard from one of my spies 
in the industry (OK, so I exaggerated. It 
was a friend who went to the Decem- 
ber Microfair) that Kempston has 
launched a very interesting package 
+ which could allow your Spectrum to do 
a passable impression of the Apple 
Mac. Finder, priced at £49.99, lets you 
have an icon-driven front end and 
includes a Kempston mouse. And this 
is on the machine they call humble! 
Details from Kempston on 0908 677886 


MGT's DIY 

MGT has stepped in to combat some of the 
+2A incompatibility problems mentioned in 
Express 6 with the release of the Fixit, a small 
widget that should allow successful connec- 
tion with a host of add-ons. MGTs own +D 
and Disciple interfaces are catered for as well 
as the Opus Discovery and Microdrive. MGTs 
attitude is commendable, but I cant help 
thinking it should be Amstrad itself providing 
a remedy. 

The Fixit costs £7.95 direct from MGT, Lake- 
side Technology Park, Phoenix Way, 
Swansea SA7 9EH. 

Robin Alway 











MEGABYTE COMPUTER CENTRE 
12 ETTRICK SQUARE, TOWN CENTRE, 


CUMBERNAULD, G67 2TT 
0236 738398 


Scotland's Atari 8 / 16 Bit Computer Centre 
Full Range of Software And Peripherals In Stock 


Atari STFM 
Atari STFM 


Superpack 
COMMODORE AMIGA 


Amiga A500 . 
Amiga A500 + Software 


£279.00 
£379.00 


£379.00 
£399.00 


We Are Main Stockists Of Electronic Arts 
Electronic Software, Cumana, Philips, Microprose 


We Carry A Full Range Of Commodore 8 Bit, Atari 8 Bit, 
Sinclair, Amstrad, IBM, Atari ST, Amiga, Sega, 
Atari 2600, Software and Peripherals 


3.5" Disks From £12.95 Per 10 
5.25" Disks From £8.95 Per 10 


ALL PRICES QUOTED ARE FOR MAIL ORDER ONLY AND ARE SUBJECT TO 





INCREASE AT ANY TIME 





0236 738398 Jj 


AMIGA CENTRE 
SCOTLAND 


41 HART STREET LANE, EDINBURGH 
EHI 3RN. TEL: 031-557 4242 








“3 


ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT & P&P 
NEW PRODUCTS IN STOCK NOW! 


SCULPT 4D £368.00 


Fabulous New Features, Truly Professional Software 


FORMS IN FLIGHT 2 £79.00 


Surface Mapping. Surface Patches and more. 


Critics Choice 


Superb Integrated WP/Spreadsheet/Database System. 


20 - 100Mb Hard Disc Cards P.O.A 


The very latest cards - attractive prices 


CMI Accelerator Board £179.00 
Double Speed 68000 Plus Co Processor Slot 


F-BASIC SOURCE LEVEL DEBUGGER (SLDB) 
The only debugger quick enough for the F-Basic system only £115 


KINDWORDS VERSION 2 £49.95 


Includes the Thesaurus, new fonts and English Dictionary 


Mini GEN 
Genlock for only £113.85 
DIGI-VIEW GOLD £129.95 


All new! Hardware and Software designed for A500/2000 


PAGE FLIPPER + FX 


Full Screen image and special effects £119.95 


MAIL ORDER DEPARTMENT 


OPENS TUES -SAT 10-6PM Trade Enquiries Welcome 





NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS. « 14 JANUARY 1989 « 39 








YOUR FORMAT 
MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS ————M— 








The Instant Catalog ee 


ALL TITLES IN STOCK 





545 
645 
Batman - Caped Crusader 6.45 
Bombuzal 645 
Captain Blood 645 
Caveman Ugh-Lympics.7. 









































Daley's Olympic Challenge. 
Double Dragon. 

Dungeon Master. 
Eliminator 













































Oybernod i 645 999 | Ene "es 
Ecneion 999 1099 | Facon, 1475 
Emlyn Hughes Int Soccer 6.45 875 | Fiying Shark 1475 
Fists N Thotles.......875 999 | Gariels 1199 
History in the Making..........16.95 | Frank Bruno's Bg Box....8.75 9.99 | Heroes of Lance ADSD. "25 
In Crowd - Compiation.......8.75 | Game, Set and Man .875 11.99 | Hostages 1425 
Laser Squad. 6.25 | Games: Summer Editon 9.99 11.99 | international Karate (Ks) 11.9 
Last Ninja n 895 | Gans 9.99 11.99 | Leaderboard Brie. 1399 
Leader Board Par 3. $99 | sto inthe Making 17.99 21.99 | Lombard RAC Ray 1475 
Maria's Christmas Box 6.99 | LastNinja2 875 9.99 | Mickey Mouse 1399 
Mega Games Vol 1 9.95 | Leader Board Par 4 10.99 1299 | Munsters. 11.99 
Mckay ons 5.25 | Maria Whitaker's Bg Box645 899 | Nurs 1559 
Operation wolt Mega Games Vol + 999/1099 | Night Raider 1399 
Menace. 675 1295 
pam Use Ds ‘agp | Obteracr 1425 
Microprose Micro Soccer 995 1299 | Operation Wott TH 
Operation Wolf. 645 999 | Pacmana. "9o 
Pacmania 6.45 999 | Powerdrome "725 
Pool ot Radiance ADS NA 1799 | Putlys Saga 1725 
Question of Sport 950 









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Taito Coin-op Hits. Speedball 1475 
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Taito Coin op Hits Thunder Blade 1399 


Trad Vol 1 
Trivial Pursuit ANB. 
Where Time Stood Stil. 


INSTANT, Boston House, Abbey Park Road, Leicester LEA SAN 
Mail Order Only. State Computer's make and model. 
P&P: 50p on orders under £5. EEC 75p per title. 
‘Whole World £1.50 per title for Air Mail. 
New titles sent on the day of release, 


EN @ 0533 510102 


FOR DISK PRICES & NEW RELEASES PLEASE RING US. 


















EST. Y 


Railway Games for the PC 


Model railways without the mess or expense! 
Run a railway on your PC! Absorbing 
railway-based games for IBM PC or 
compatible (including Amstrad PC and 
PPC). All games have a save game feature - 
you will need it! (3.5" or 5.25" disks). 


** NEW !! ** 


€ Glasgow Queen Street 1987 - a busy morning in this Scottish 
terminus, with West Highland and Inverness services as well as 
Edinburgh and local traffic and holiday extras. Your task includes 
resolving problems caused by occasional non-availability of class 
47/7 for push-pull services. 


Other recent games 


€ Kings Cross 1978 - in the early days of the HST, when most services 
were still loco-hauled, often by Deltics. The challenge here is to 
keep enough platforms free for incoming trains, while refuelling 
locos when necessary, all in a layout with very limited shunting 
space. 
ShedMaster Finsbury Park - manage servicing and maintenance in 
this busy depot before the days of the HST. Diesels of many classes 
must be fuelled, serviced and sometimes repaired in time for their 
booked duties. 
ShedMaster Bounds Green - see how the task of maintenance has 
changed since the introduction of this purpose-built HST depot. 
Manage the overnight shift on four consecutive weeknights, 
handling routine servicing as well as ane repairs, and producing 
usable sets in time to take up the scheduled morning duties. 


Special offer - both ShedMaster games for only £23! 


Other games available - send SAE for complete list (sent with each order) 
Price £14.95 per game incl. VAT, postage & packing (UK or 
overseas). Payment with order please. 








SIAM Ltd. (Dept. NCE01), 1 St. David's Close, Leverstock Green, 
Hemel Hempstead, Herts. HP3 8LU 








ji 





EEN 


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T 
i n J 
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H 
LT 








OCET 























H monomo H 


























European view 

Germany has a large user base for the C64, 
and this is hardly surprising since every elec- 
tronics store supports mainly the C64 and 
Amiga. Even walking through tiny villages, 
there will be a shop window C64 in sight. 

Most items in Germany are expensive, but 
Tm glad to say electronic gadgets are very 
cheap. You could pick up a C64 with all the 
necessary bits and pieces for under i 
£99 and an Amiga for under £320. 
That's the advantage of having Com- 
modores European base in the same 
country. 

One fact worthy of mention is that 
even though there were machines 
everywhere, they didnt have much 
software. It was mainly Powerhouse 
and other budget titles, although soft- 
ware for the Amiga was pretty new. 

Passing through France we picked 
up quite a few French computer 
mags. Many of them seem to borrow 
ideas from British ones — or is it the 
other way round? TI give you a clue. 
They all feature lots of smiling or groaning 
faces. 


Wiggle listing 

This listing will make your whole C64 display 
wiggle with inertia. The program also has a 
few instructions: for example, "CLR HOME|" 
means that you must press the SHIFT and 


Wiggle listing 
PRINT'[CLR HOME]PLEASE WAIT" 
RESTORE:B=49152 


120,169,192,141,21 
DATA 3,169,13,141,20 
DATA 3,88,96,169,48 
DATA 141,18,208,162,0 
DATA 173,114,193,238,21 
DATA 192,141,22,208,160 


$8238555585^ 


= 
s 


DATA 40,192,169,27,141 
DATA 17,208,169,1,141 
DATA 25,208,169,127,141 
DATA 13,220,169,129,141 
DATA 26,208,76,49,234 


IFD<>9075THENPRINT DATA ERROR":END 


8 


SS8HSSESSS B ESSEEBE 








CLR HOME keys while inside the speech 
marks. That also goes for "[RVS ON] 

If you have entered the data incorrectly the 
program will tell you. Lines 200-270 are the 
data for the inertia of the wiggle. You can 
change it yourself, making sure you stay 
inside the data boundaries. Wiggle effect is 
also like the ripple effect on water. The pro- 
gram runs under Interrupt, so you can still 
move your cursor and code. 


1989 releases 

Hot C64 games heading your way this year 
are 

Technocop * Gremlin 
Due out any day now, Technocop takes you on 
a very high speed car chase against the bad 
guys. You also get the chance to step outside 

and fight fist to fist. 














Bob's Full House * Domark 


Due out early this year. You must all know. 
how boring the TV program is, so let's not say 
too much about the game. Could be good fam- 
ily entertainment, though, so keep an eye 
open 
X-Men, Doctor Doom, Spiderman 
* Microprose/Paragon Software 
| This series of comic characters should soon be 
making their computer debut on 
the C64. 


Thanks a million 

We've got thoroughly out of synch 
these past few weeks what with 
Shooting off to Germany, so a big 
thank you to Rik Numa, who helped 
us out in issue 9, Thanks also to 
Jason Holborn for his kind com 
ments on our Amiga demos in 
AmigaBlit 


ENEXTL 


Printing error 

In the Christmas bumper issue we 
put together a little computer teas: 
er Unforunately there was an 
error. The answer to question 2 
should have been 2 bytes to a 
word, not 16. 


Hubbard love 

An American friend phones to tell 
us that Rob Hubbard has composed 
plenty of tunes since he left Eng: 
land for California. One of them 
was for a game called One on One, 
which I heard over the phone. 
Being Rob Hubbard it sounded 100 
per cent cool, with very clear sam- 
ples. He's also done tunes for other 
games, but well probably never 
hear them as only the best Ameri 

can software is imported over here 


Cheats 
Heres where you the reader can 
contribute. If you have any cheats, 
pokes or tips, send them to C64 
CHEATS, New Computer Express, 
Future Publishing Ltd, 4 Queen 
Street, Bath BA1 1EJ. 

lan + Mic 





40 + NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 14 JANUARY 1989 




















Firm - where? 

The good news of CPC sales makes it all the 
more regrettable that, as reported here before 
Christmas, Amsoft has allowed the Firmware 
manual to go out of print, and has replied 
with a simple "No' to enquiries about a 
reprint. If anyone knows where copies can 
still be found, I'd be grateful to hear from you. 
Write to CPC Centre, NCE, 4 Queen St, Bath 
BA11EJ. 





Let's get serious 


The CPC did jolly well this Christmas, contrary to 


prin cy ae a cde 


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it 
il 

HE 


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- 
cf 
H 


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I 
& 
a 


A 
H 


been 





Sound of silence 

When I first bought my 6128 (seems 
like centuries ago - how did I ever 
manage without it?), I foolishly imag- 
ined that all I had to do was plug a 
pair of headphones straight in, and I 
could enjoy a massive improvement 
in sound quality, When I tried it, I 
thought l'd been struck deaf. Silence. 

The reason, of course, is that the 
CPC doesnt have an inbuilt amplifier 
of sufficient power. You can buy the 
Soundblaster, an all-in-one amplifier 
plus speakers from Siren Software 
(061 228 1831) for £30. 

A cheaper alternative (and the one 
that appealed to me, penniless jour- 
nalist that I am), is simply to connect 
your computer to a stereo through 
the latter's input sockets. The con 
nections for wiring cables are in the 
manual, and conform to a central 
earth with two signals. And that is enough 
for electrical bods to make a working cable — 
honest! 


Bah humbug! 
Enjoying your new year? Good, Im glad. 
Spare a thought, though, for the eight 


* Mini Office Il gets a bit of tailoring, courtesy of 
Camel's Interceptor 


Amstrad staff given the sack (as reported in 
NCE last week). And I'm not talking about the 
swag-bag Santa carries around full of pressies 
for the kids. 

It seems to have been confined to Amsoft, 
which hasn't produced a decent CPC program. 
in ages, concentrating instead on bundling 
deals. 

Amstrad is describing the move as a clean 
Sweep of its less productive elements. Could 
it be, however, Alan's subtle (?) way of show- 
ing these stocks 'n shares chappies he wont 
let hugely increased profits turn him soft? 


Cannon and Ball's up in the air 
Operation Hormuz took a fair slice out of my 
Christmas holiday, being an altogether more 
interesting way to spend the Yuletide vaca- 
tion than stuffing the Carey cakehole with 
cold turkey and sitting slumped in front of the 
Cannon'nBall Festive Frolix (rpt.). Still, 
my time was not entirely wasted, 
since it enables me to bring you, dear 
reader, the exclusive playing tips list- 
ed herewith: 

* Always do a reconaissance of a 
stretch of land and water before 
attacking the ships and land installa 
tions thereon. That way you dont 
needlessly waste lives crashing into 
radar towers (a fate Ive suffered on 
numerous occasions - hence the 
shape of my nose, but that's another 
story) 

* Keep an eye on the fuel gauge, and 
get back to the carrier more often that 
you need to. Otherwise the Exocets 
can sink it before youve noticed 
they're there. 

* When attacking the bases, use a 
medium to high level run, as opposed. 
to the diving mentioned in the instruc- 
tions. It does naturally take a little 
longer, but at least youll avoid the 
radar towers. 

* Even selection of Exocets, never 
mind actually firing the bally things, 
should always be done while pointing 
away from your carrier. The self inflict 
ed wound occasioned by neglecting 
this simple piece of advice is, believe 
me, the saddest of all. I know, I was 
that idiot. 


Flying Camel 

Users of Mini Office II, among whom I 
count myself, will be interested in 
Camel Micros Interceptor. It's not, as it 





sounds, an FA-18 simulator, but a kind of bolt. 
on program that takes the tedium out of using 
Databases money-spinner by allowing you to 
change parameters (screen inks, disk cata- 
logues etc.) much quicker. It could prove 
rather useful, and Il bring you my evaluation 
just as soon as Ive seen a finished copy. 

Steve Carey 














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NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS © 14 JANUARY 1989 « 41 





OUR F 1 


MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS 








New Office 

Details of the new version of Mini Office are 
now being smuggled out of Database's 
Manchester HQ by a team of highly trained 
industrial espionage agents. 

Mini Office Professional Plus will consist of 
the same modules that made up Mini Office, 
together with a spelling checker module with 
a 80,000 word dictionary, and a thesaurus. 
The checker works either on Mini Office doc: 
uments in the working memory or separately 
on LocoScript and Protext documents. The 
Thesaurus is also promised as a stand-alone 
module which will please a lot of writers, 
journalists, authors, hacks, 
wordsmiths. 

There are also a lot of 
additions promised to the 
comms package (which 
had quite a few bugs in 
earlier versions) such as 
autodialling and easier text. 
saving. Shame they didnt 
add a phone bill calculator 
to top it off. 

Just like certain Chancel: 
lors of the Exchequer, an acute lack of 
exports caused a lot of embarrassment 
Exporting will now be possible from the 
spreadsheet and database, Also, import facil 
ities are being provided in the database - so 


Office. 








Areal tip 





that data from LocoFile can be used in Mini | 


The manual of the first version drew a lot | 
of criticism. Many people dismissed it as use- 
less, which was rather unfair: it at least list 
ed all the commands and everything, almost 
all in the right order, and made an excellent 
door stop. Tue new version wil also come | 
with a whole new manual, written by John 
Hughes. It will largely be the All in One | 
Computing book on Mini Office released last 
year but will have extra sections to cope with 
| the new additions, 
| Mini Office Professional Plus wil cost 

£39.95; details from Database on 0625 

878888. | 


Well what do you know 
Ten things you never knew about PCWs 
1. They have sold over a million throughout 
the world and three quarters of a million in 
Britain. 
| 2. There are seven in Czechoslovakia. 
| 3. A higher proportion of women own PCWs 
than any other computer. 
4. They cost over £1,000 in New Zealand. 
5. It is the only machine 
for which a commercially 
released Welsh word pro- 
cessor exists. 
6. You can claim them | 
against tax if you use it to 
write for business, but only 
a decreasing proportion of 
the cost price for each year. 
7. A 9512 keyboard works 
on an 8000 machine and 
vice versa. | 
8.Jeffrey Archer had two given to him but 
doesn't like them so still writes his novels out 
| longhand. 
| 9. Kylie Minogue does not have a PCW. 
10. There are no mentions of PCWs in either 


the Bible or Shakespeare. 
| Rob Ainsley 


A better Basic DOS! 
Wouldnt it be wonderful if, unlike as with | 
CP/M, MSDOS, AtariDOS, AmigaDOS etc, 
the Basic language itself constituted an 
integral part of the operating system? You 
could then use all the operating system 
commands within the language itself 
including them in your 
programs as needed 

There would be no 
need to have two sets 
of commands differing 
in syntax and sub- 
stance, one for use ‘at 
DOS level" and the other for use within the 
interpreted (or compiled) Basic environ- 
ment. There would be no need to toggle 
between Basic and DOS with commands 
like BASICA or SYSTEM. 


Two at a time 

It would be wonderful if you could run more 
than one program, or more than one copy of 
the same program, at the same time. By 
chopping up time into exceedingly brief 
slices, and allocating these slices on a semi- 
cyclic basis to these programs (alternatively 
called tasks), SSR (smooth simultaneous 
running) would be achieved. 

In reality, the CPU chip is only running 
one program at any one time, then suspend: 
ing that program and starting another. But 
because the slices, or chunks, of time are so 


Pipe dreams? 
This week | thoughts I'd do a little day- 


dreaming. Specifically, about a dream 
computing machine. Read on... 





tiny, the illusion of simultaneity is created. 
In much the same way that persistence of 
vision in the eye creates the illusion of 
motion when slightly differing images are 
"rapidly (i.e. faster than about 15 switches 
per second) presented to the retina, all the 
programs will appear to be running simulta- 
neously as the CPU switches between them 
thousands or tens of thousands of times per 
second. 

On our dream computer there would be 
the facility to alter the ‘priority’ or time- 
importance of the tasks by instructing - 
from Basic in the case of our 
Basic/DOS/BIOS concurrent machine - the 
CPU to spend relatively more or fewer slices 
of time on a particular task then its propor 
tionate share. 

This would permit 
the concurrent opera- 
tion of, say, several 
copies of a word-pro- 
cessor together with a 
desktop publisher and 
spelling checker, or of several compilers and 
a structure analyser, maybe, 


Independence at last 

Surely it would be wonderful if you could 
have device independence, so that the sys- 
tem, transparent to the user, took care of all 
operational differences between 1/0 devices 
(consoles, keyboards, screens, windows, 
printers, modems, files, floppy drives, RAM 
drives, hard drives etc) enabling the user to 
use the same (command) verbs irrespective 
of the (destination) noun. 


Wouldn't it be wonderful? 
More next time. Keep guessing as to the 
identity of the dream machine. 

Eric Simmonds 





SECTOR SOFTWARE 


TEL: 0772 454328 


WE SPECIALISE IN SINCLAIR QL, CAMBRIDGE COMPUTERS, Z88 AND 
COMMODORE AMIGA SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE. 


SPECIAL AMIGA OFFER 


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128K RAM pack 


CAMBRIDGE COMPUTERS Z88 


279.00 


Trumpcard (897K expansion + disk I.F) 


SINCLAIR QL 
290.00 


Taskmaster (allows many programs to run in the QL at once.25.00 


12.00 





Touch Typist (Typing tutor for the Standard QL) 
Spellbound (Checks your spelling as you type) 
Flashback (The fastest database available on the QL) 
Page Designer 2 (A full feature colour desktop publisher) 
Omnidump (NLQ output in draft mode PD2 dumps + 
T. A grey scale) EE. 
(containing ten commerical games QZ (QL to 288 file transfer program and lead). 
QL World Index (Very fast database to contents of QL 
World) 6.00 


value £229) £390 
Writeturn (Print Spreadsheets etc sideways on your printer)..12.00 


All the above QL software is produced by Sector software. Ask for our full guide/pricelist of our QL software. 


BULLETIN BOARD NORTHERN SINCLAIR SHOW 


We are now running a Viewdata bulletin board on 0772 454328 6pm to Sam weekdays and all | Ove to a lack of previous shows in the North for Sinclair machines Sector Software 
weekends which is mainly QL specific but includes a 288 section and is soon to include an Amiga | ' to be organising a Northern Sinclair show around Preston in Lancashire (jnct 28 
jem or 29 M6) in about March, anyone who would like to be mailed with details or any 
Spectrum, QL, Z88 companies or peripheral suppliers please contact us for details. 
We are at the moment writing Amiga to Z88 fle transfer software and Amiga to QL software. I! you are 
interested in either of these then please contact us for more details. 
We stock too many products to mention in any advert, (we have a regular four page advert in QL 
World each month), so please send us a SAE or give us a ring for our free product guide and price list 


32K RAM pack 

128K EPROM PACK 

32K EPROM pack 

PC link software and cable 
QL link software and cable 
BBC link software and cable. 
Serial printer cable 

Parallel interface 

Custom carry case for 288. 
Mains adaptor 


AMIGA A500 Including FREE 
modulator, work bench, extras, mouse, 
photon paint and ten star pack 


30.00 
25.00 
35.00 


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We have a range of QL, Spectrum, ZX81, and Amstrad spare parts including service 
manuals, ring for prices on individual items. 


SECTOR SOFTWARE are always on the lookout for Good quality programs for the 
QL, Z88 or Amiga, if you have written one then please contact us. 


SECTOR SOFTWARE Fax: 0772 454328 


39 Wray Crescent, Ulnes Walton, Leyland, Lancashire, PR5 3NH 


Access and Visa accepted. All prices include VAT/UK postage 


|A goods ordering section is now available on the Bulletin Board, so goods can be ordered by Modem. 


Tel: 0772 454328 





YOUR FORMAT 


MEE. MACHINE-SPECIFIC COLUMNS 





agog 
BOX 


Serious stuff 

1 always breathe a sigh of relief when the 
festive season ends. OK, I know kids love it, 
but for most adults its just one stressful 
round of expense and hassle after another. 
Furthermore you can never get any serious 
work done until school starts, and you can 
reclaim the computer. 

In this back-to-work spirit I have been 
scrutinising an impressive educational 
package, the second part of the BBC's Tech- 
nology and Design course, which gives you 
no fewer than three disks and manuals. 


A+DFS 


There must be many people with an ADFS sys- 


alongside the radio series of the same 
name, and as such is pure courseware. 

I gave the package to a Craft Design and 
Technology (CDT) teacher for review, and 
the following edited comments are his. 

"The Bus Game is based upon the effec- 
tive use of information to solve problems in 
running a bus company. | found putting in 
the information a little tedious. It was good 
for the ‘hands on’ experience it gave, and it 


brought home sensible utilisation of money, 
time and scheduling. 

"An Adventure Of Sorts uses physical 
statistics as the basis for an adventure 
game in which various physical logical and 
technological problems have to be solved. 
Generally entertaining and well thought 
out. My children and I enjoyed playing it 
very much. 

"Pack-It highlights problems encountered 
in industry every day in placing boxes on 
pallets, and looks at the design of cardboard 
packaging. The program uses 3D views of 
various packing systems, and while there 
are no particular goals to achieve there are 
general exercises to complete, 

“All the programs are well presented, 
with good manuals, although there is no 
consistent user interface throughout. 


New beeb-em-ups 


As mentioned last week, while I was talk- 





pertes repel ae! 

BASIC programs can be changed to work 
pigris *DRIVE to the equivalent *DIR 
command. 





The software is designed to be used | ster will be an earth-shattering 9 x 4 charac- 


ing to programmer Peter Scott, he outlined 
two new projects he's working on. The 
first, which should be complete as you 
are reading this, being Barbarian 2. 

In this sequel you can play either 
Character, which should please femi- 
nists (possibly) and MCPs with unnat- 
ural interests. The game is in four lev- 
els with 20-25 screens, and six mon- 
sters in each level. The biggest mon- 


ters in size x 20 frames of animation. 

As soon as that is out of the way Peter 
will be starting work on Predator. 

How does he get the work? Well, as he 
said, "I hit the deadlines’. Peter was also 
chipper about the future of the BBC games 
market, and he predicted it would hold up 
well throughout 1989. That's good news 
indeed for the new year. 

Andrew Brown 


game that will load constantly I will be able 
to tell you how the game plays in later levels. 


Regal blunder 

In the rush to get a double-sized article for 
the Christmas issue, one or two errors crept 
in regarding the Kings Valley 2 tips. All the 
codes for this game should consist of eight 
letters, so if you tried to enter a couple of the 
codes as listed, you would find that the pro- 


CP/M emulator — 


After...bomber 

One game I have just received for evaluation 
is Afterburner from Activision (Mediagenic). 
Unfortunately, despite trying three data 
recorders and two copies of Afterburner, I 
only managed to load the game once. The 
one time it loaded was when I used my per- 
sonal stereo! 

Obviously the levels on the tape are 
wrong, as this is the first piece of software I 
have had loading problems with, Due to the 
Christmas and New Year Holidays I have 
been unable to contact Activision to obtain 





replacement copies, but I can tell you from 
the brief chance I had to play Afterburner 
that the MSX version is as good as, if not 
better than, any of the 8-bit versions. Graph- 
















ics are adequate rather than brilliant, but the 
feel and speed of the game has been well 
captured. If I can obtain a version of this 





gram would not accept them. I apologise for 

this, and include some new codes for this 

game. They are as follows 

* For 37 lives on Level 2, type 

IAIPPKBK 

* For 72 lives on Level 3, type 

DADHHMMM 

* For 43 lives on Level 4, type 

ACCCDJON 

* If you want to start on a much 

higher level, try BIECGACK on 

Level 25 

Also mentioned in the Christ. 

mas issue was the Neos Mouse 

and Cheese software, It should 

have said (It's a fair cop ~ Ed) 

that the Cheese 2 software is for 

the MSX 2, and is available separately (most. 

MSX 2s are supplied with mouse included) 
Keith Neal 























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FOUR 
FREE 
ISSUES! 


ible bargain, but take out a year's subscription and 
we'll send you an additional four issues of the 

magazine absolutely free! 

W So for just £24.95, you'll receive 56 copies of 
Britain's most exciting weekly computer maga- 
zine! (Or you can take out a six-month subscription 
(26 issues) for just £12.50. 

W There's no better way of keeping 10096 up to 


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(Please allow three weeks for your subscription order to be pro- 
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You can order your subscription by phone. Just dial 0458 74011 and ask for 
New Computer Express Subscriptions. 










A SS Si R 
I YES, id like to keep in touch with the latest computer news, releases i 
and advertising bargains by subscribing to New Computer Express. | 
l would like to subscribe for: l 
I 56 issues costing just £24.95 ^ 26 issues costing just £12.50 I 
I (tick one box only) I 
l Name .. l 
| Address .. [| 
l Age: «18 18-25 26-35 36-45 >45 I 
l Totalipajablgi., retis concasenuescadcousontersanscecbsnscesdhusuaves cumteuraeatentedthasedvebessaeesadt] l 
l Payment by: Access . Visa © Cheque _| PO I 
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I Expiry date: February 13th 1989 l 
l Please make cheques or POs payable to Future Publishing Ltd and enclose them with this I 
form in an envelope addressed to Express Subscriptions, Future Publishing Ltd, Somerton, 
I Somerset TA11 7PY. No stamp required if posted in the UK. l 


E At only 48p New Computer Express is an incred- 


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ATARI DECLARES = 


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I—— m" 
Collect the set! 


Missed out on some earlier issues of New Computer Express? Here's 
how you can complete your collection. 

We have limited numbers of back issues available for 75p each 
(48p plus 27p post and packing). 

Just send details of the issues you require, your name and address 
plus a cheque made out to Future Publishing Ltd or your credit card 
card details to: 

Express Back Issues, Future Publishing Ltd, Somerton, Somerset TA11 7PY. 


Here are the highlights of the previous issues - but remember they also 
contain all your regular favourites: news, games reviews, machine columns, 
beginners guide, controversies, tech tips, letters, PSsst, vouchers etc etc. 
Issue 1: Future of computing, PC graphics, revival of Basic, Xmas games 
Issue 2: Which computer?, the perfect wordprocessor, Konix console 

Issue 3: Portable computing, Alan Sugar profile part I, yuppie software 
Issue 4: Sega's16-bit console, best value PC, games that change your life 
Issue 5: PC 200 fiasco, DTP guide, computer art, Unix explained 

Issue 6: MGT Coupe, careers in computing, Realtime profile, cracking 

Issue 7/8: Best games of '88, review of the year, look forward to '89 

Issue 9: Censorship controversy, classic computer problems solved 








Soe Se Se Se SSeS SSS Sse. 






PROGRAMMERS WANTED! 


To program games, graphics, software etc. on the 
Amiga, Atari and IBM PC compatibles. 


If you have written any games we would like to hear 
from you as soon as possible. 


For further details please telephone Michael on 


(0252) 877431 


or write to: 
GAINSTAR 
Unit 1, Rear of 7 Wellington Road, 
Sandhurst, Surrey, GU17 8AW 


| 


3 
r A new software label setting new standards in į 
i Computer Gaming requires CODERS and i 
; GRAPHIC ARTISTS for the AMIGA, ATARI ST : 
and PC MACHINES, capable of producing the ! 
BEST the Medium has to offer. ! 


If you think you've got what it takes, contact 
ADRIAN TURNER at 
ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS 
immediately on 
(01) 533 2918 
or send C.V.'s and DEMOS to: 
UNIT 7D, KING'S YARD, CARPENTERS ROAD, 
LONDON, E15 2HD 





CAN ALL THES 
THE REVIEWERS: 





User-friendly, fast... easy to use. Amstrad Action 
Value for money... 10 out of 10. Computing With The Amstrad 












WHAT 


YOU HAVEN'T BOUGHT THE 
MICRO MUSIC CREATOR? 


The Micro-Music Creator, for all Amstrad CPC computers, lets you produce startling three-track musical 
compositions and digitised sound effects. The results can be incorporated into your own programs with the 
minimum of fuss. Can you afford not to get hold of a copy? 


Tape £9.95, Disk £14.95, Rom £24.95 


Please make cheques/PO's payable to First Byte Software. All prices include VAT & P&P 





THESE PEOPLE BE WRONG? 


„| Friendly, packed with options.. wonderfully priced. Amstrad Computer User 


OMPUTER JOBS « COMPUTER JOBS » COMPUTER JOBS « COMPUTER JOBS e COMPUTER JOBS MN 


|| YOUNG BRIGHT COMPUTER | 





Sentient Software Ltd. 








(Established 1984) 


Require 
In-House Programmers 
Fully Conversant In At Least One of the Following: 


Z-80 (Spectrum/Amstrad/ MSX) 
6502 (Atari ST/Commodore Amiga) 
68000 (Atari ST/Commodore Amiga) 

8086 (IBM PC & Compatibles) 


We Offer State Of The Art Development Systems, 
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BRANCH HOUSE 
18 BRANCH ROAD 
ARMLEY, LEEDS 
WEST YORKSHIRE 
LS123AQ 


rdi 












Wars 








THE USERS: 
l am delighted with it. Peter Asbury-Smith, London 
Very good value for money. G Waite, Leeds 
Very pleased with the programs. The youngsters enjoy 
playing Empty Tummy. GL Palmer, Rotherhithe 













FIRST BYTE 
SOFTWARE wi 





71 Barn Glebe, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 7JZ 


EXPRESS 
VOUCHERS 








Tel: 0225 765086 






[We Acceer 
VOUCHENS 











A final page stupidly 
handed over to cynical 
old hack, Private I 


PSsst! 





MEGASCOOP! 


The PSsst! crossword 


After weeks of research I'm delighted to present the ultimate computer crossword. 
You should be aware that there are absolutely NO silly clues (especially not 18 
across), no giveaway answers (especially not 5 down) and most definitely no prizes 
beyond the enormous personal satisfaction I am sure you will feel at completing it. 


ACROSS 

5 How Amstrad's boss disciplines his staff? 
No, he munches them for breakfast (5, 6) 
7 Electronic Rats in a maze (4) 

8 Accounting software firm is wise and 
cuddly (8) 

9 Error message in naughty document 
(3,4) 

11 Memory of a sheep! (3) 

14 On following up Greek letter computer 
firm organises hand-held machines (5) 

15 Graphics chip in the Amiga -b****** 
mess! (7) 

17 Essential piece of wood? Both a piano 
and a computer have one (8) 

18 Ha! You won't get this one. No one out- 
side of the trade knows the first name of 
Electronic Art's boss, and being American, 
Mr Hawkins has not got the sort of monick- 
er you could easily guess. A wee clue: it's 
a verb that has something to do with drugs. 
and travel (4) 

19 "It's for you-hoo” should be this soft- 
ware house's slogan — having left Comet 
so muddled (11) 


DOWN 

1 Japanese console firm rises over a long 

period of time (4) 

2 Cast your mind back four or five years to 
the early ZX Microfairs, and it's from tables 
like these that software houses used to 


bawl out their wares (or even mix up let- 
ters) (7) 

3 I hear I'm eager to know more about the 
machine that Commodore so loves to bun- 
dle so many times (5) 

4 Behave cleverly when alternating current 
flips an ST over a small market (3, 5) 

5 This type of business package is so dull 
(but oh so necessary) that you can have 
the answer without further ado. It's spread- 
sheet. No, it's not a trick. Imagine you've 
solved the anagram of "Shape deters” if 
you feel the need for a challenge Or if you 
prefer, it's what you do before starting a 
picnic (11) 

6 It's not hard for a programmer to pro- 
duce this type of ware (4) 

10 Spot the link between International 
Soccer and Matchday and a popular field 
sport in which 22 grown men kick around a 
leather sphere (8) 

12 Gamesweek categorically denies that it 
would ever base a review on an odd mole 
that's become confused (3, 4) 

13 Nasty male tendency found in games 
existing today (6) 

16 Of all the many, many thousands of 
Archimedes games, this one from Superior 
was the first (5) 

18 A useful piece of software which, unfor- 
tunately, appears to have some sort of 
mildly rude meaning. But we're not going to 
mention that (4) 






























































Shoot from the Lip. 


"Its an extremely lucrative embarrass- 
ment and an anachronism. Like your 
Aunt Ethel it never seems to go away." 
Commodore on the dear old C64. 


‘Ina hundred years' time it will become 
apparent that games programmers are 
the chimney sweeps of our generation." 
Industry commentator Mike Scialom 
on the plight of the underpaid whizz 
kids. 


"Keep an eye out for names such as 
Enterprise, MSX, QL, Tandy Colour 
Computer and the Commodore Plus 


Four. These are all among the indus- 
trys walking dead and should not be 
approached unless you contemplate 
opening a computer museum." 

Geof Wheelwright of The Times dish- 
ing out some buying advice. 


"About this time every year numerous 
organizations seeking publicity target 
the toy industry with sensationalist 
charges that garner media coverage. 
This year is no exception." 

Nintendo's Peter Main on allegations 
that Nintendo games cause children to 
become more aggressive. 


Next Week 


Essential printers 


Just which 


mabye te ET 


Express presents a fact-packed 
Virgin territory 
fon Virgin wich recreates the enel na 7 


Ten things you never knew... 


„about 


programming | es, Let Express help 
Sainan of ae Motes 


So farewell then, 
The mammoth Alan series comes to an end, 


programming, in the 


Alan Sugar 


with our very own Poel looking forward to 
ue Mi for Arad 


what the 


On sale on 


Thursday 


January 19th 
Don't miss it! 








46 + NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS » 14 JANUARY 1989 











920ST-FM SUPER PACK 


ARCADE GAMES 


Arkanoid It Imagine £19.95 
Beyond The Ice Palace Elite £19.95 
Black Lamp Firebird £19.95 






















E esee “Es 
Ikari Warriors Elite 
fae ee eS. COMPUTERS 






Ranarama Hewson Consultants The range of Atari ST computers offers something for everyone. From the games enthusiast 
Retum To Genesis Firebird who wants the challenge of the very best in arcade action, to the businessman who wants to 
make financial forecasts or faultless presentations, The ST offers high quality graphics, 

Roadwars Melbourne House 
Sirake Mandarin sound and speed for the gamer, whilst providing a fast, user friendly and affordable solution 
Test Die RAT to business. The ST is now firmly established in the home environment and boasts a wealth 
DOO AC of users in education, local government, television, and a variety of different businesses. 
Thrust Firebird £9. Software for the range stretches to cover applications as diverse as ENTERTAINMENT, 
Thundercats Elite ACCOUNTS, ART, COMMUNICATIONS, COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN, DATABASES, 
Wizball Ocean DESKTOP PUBLISHING, EDUCATION, MUSIC, PROGRAMMING, SPREADSHEETS, WORD 
Xenon Melbourne House PROCESSING and more. For a full list of the software available, as well as details of the ST 
Zynaps Hewson Consultants. range, complete and return the coupon below. ipfos come a e tine of going ts pre EROE 


SPORTS SIMULATIONS 


The Atari Super Pack s ideal for you if you want to get off toa fying star. Eddie Edwards Super Ski Elite £19.95 520ST-FM EXPLORER PACK 
withthe best in entertainment sofware. The Pack inches a S20STFM Seconds Out Tynesoft £19.95 
wih fil RAM, a butin TM dik orive, over £480 of lop games nd? Summer Olympiad "68 Tynesoft £19.95 WITH BUILT-IN 1Mb DISK DRIVE 


Joystick. It you Buy the Super Pack at Silica Shop, we will add our own ST 


Starter Kit (worth over £200), Free Of Charge. Return the coupon for details PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE 




























Organiser Triangle Publishing £49.95 
JOYSTICK 
Atari CX40 Joystick Atari Corp £499 






FREE ATARI BUNDLE VALUE:£458.97 


— With SM124 mono monitor: £498: — With SC1224 colour monitor: £698 25 








For the serious home user and the small busi 
rated to announce ‘6 new, packaged 5 ‘The value for money offered by the Atari ST range is reflected in the Explorer Pack 
1040ST-FM. The TO40ST-FM has iMbyte RAM and a featuring the 520ST-FM computer with 512K RAM. The 520ST-FM computer now 
‘Mbyte built-in disk drive. In additions ina 10406 T- FM. comes with a built-in 1 Mb double sided disk drive as well as a free mouse controller 
pow comes witii a TV modulo E Dis eine and a built-in TV modulator. The new 520ST-FM Explorer Pack includes the 520ST- 
available 1040ST-F was designed for use with a monitor. L FM Ri i 

Only end did net corne With b IneduNtoE] TR MOINET computer, the arcade game Ranarama, a tutorial program and some useful 
allows, the 1040ST-F to be plugged dimcly Into any desktop accessories. In addition, if you buy the Explorer Pack from Silica, we will 
domestic TV set, and comes compete with a lend to give you the Silica ST Starter Kit worth over £200, FREE OF CHARGE. Return the 
allow you to do so. new 'I ir X 

Pipe tee ts e e mud f Coupon for details of our Starter Kit and of the full ST range. 


four high quality software including à : 
ics packages including a spread- à cm 

straight down to business with PER 
ftint tne software. (wort eee emus. £ WEEK 
Professional Pack trom Sica Shop, you wil aso RETURN COUPON, 
the Silica ST Starter Kit (worth over £200), Free I 
Charge. Return the coupon for furtner information. 

E *VAT- 


+ SM124 mono monitor: £398 W + SC1224 colour monitor: £598 xr 























With SM124 mono monitor: — £50808 - £385; 
With SC1224 colour monitor: . £798% 














Belore you decide when to buy your new Atari ST | SILICA STARTER KIT: Worth over £200, FREE 
computer, we suggest you consider very carefully WHERE | with every Atari ST computer bought Irom Silica. 
Mb 4Mb MEGA ST Jou buy it Thee aro MANY compans sho can ofer | PROFESSIONAL PAK: Froo. business. sofware 

You computer, ew peripherals and the top tn seling | wih YHOST-FM and MEGA ST bought rom Sica. 

titles, There are FEWER companies who can offer a wide | DEDICA VICING: 7 hiline Alari iraina 
The MEGA ST computers are styled as as lightweight keyboard with a separate GPU, range of products for your Computor nd expert die | Rare ED CNG 7 me Aa d 
connected by a coiled telephone style cable. There are two versions of the MEGA ST. e bale when You, ad There ONLY ON yeu d 
one with 2Mbytes of RAM and the other with 4Mbytes, Each version has a 1Mbyte - ‘company who can provide the largest range of Atari ST | THE FULL STOCK RANGE: All ot your Atari 
double sided disk drive built-in to the CPU unit. The MEGA ST's do not come with felted products in the UK, a fu ime Alay ST specaiat | eawirements trom one place 
modulator built-in and must therefore be used with a monitor. With every MEGA ST = = technical helpline and in-depth afier sales suppor, inc- | AFTER SALES SUPPORT: The stali at Silica are 
Purchased, we will add the ‘Professional Pack’ software (worth £384.83) detailed luding free newsletters and brochures delivered 1o your | S#diceted to help you get the best trom your ST. 
above, plus the Sik- door for as Jong as you require after you purchase your | FREE CATALOGUES: Mailed direct to your home 
ica tarter Kit 

































‘computer. That one company is Silica Shop. We have | 49 soon as we print them, leaturing offers as well 
(worth over £200) omm e pede AA as all of the new releases. 

both Free Of Charge. with an annual turnover in excess of £8 million and can | FREE OVERNIGHT DELIVERY: On ali hardware 
Return the coupon *mono monitor-£998 | «mono monitor=£1298 now claim to meet our customers requirements with an | orders shipped within the UK mainland 

for further details. *colour monitor=£1198 |*colour monitor -£1498 accuracy and understanding which is second to none | PRICE MATCH PROMISE: We will match comp- 


DIP PageStream £149. 


the coupon below for our latest literature and begin to | FREE TECHNICAL HELPLINE: Full tr 
experience the Silica Shop specialist Atari service. Atari technical experts always at your service, 
Desktop Publishing (DTP) is one of the fastest growing applications for $ TEXT-FLOW AROUND GRAPHICS 
Computers. We are please fo announce a powertu low cos package forthe Ala ST | * ROTATION OF TEXT & GRAPHICS 
called PageSiream. PageStream costs only £149 (+VAT=£17135) and. 
works with an Atari 1040ST and a Seikosha SP-180AI printer, you can 
Tunning wit a compete sytem for ess than £1000, Some "Ot the 


nog ta cate roo oan Soe WITH EVERY ST - RETURN COUPON FOR DETAILS 
program, complete and return the coupon below, ticking the ‘DTP box in the comer. ALL PRICES QUOTED INCLUDE FREE UK DELIVERY, 


















































To: Silica Shop Ltd, Dept NCE 1288, 1-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 4DX 
PLEASE SEND FREE LITERATURE ON THE ATARI ST 


Mr/Mrs/Ms: Initials: Surname: 









Wf you already own an Atari ST computer and would like to be registered on our mailing list as an 
ST user, let us know. We will be pleased to send you copies of our price lists and newsletters 
FREE OF CHARGE as they become available. Complete the coupon and return it to our Sidcup 
branch and begin experiencing a specialist ST service that is second to none. 

















I] ^ Address: 












SIDCUP (& Mail Order) 01-309 1111 
1-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, DAT4 4DX 
OPEN: MON-SAT 9am - 5.30pm ^ LATE NIGHT: FRIDAY 9am - 7pm 
LONDON 01-580 4000 
52 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P OBA 
OPEN: MON-SAT 9.30am - 6.00pm ^ LATE NIGHT: NONE Poucode 
LONDON 01-629 1234 ext 3914 n 
Selfridges (1st floor), Oxford Street, London, WTA TAB Do you already own a computer DTP 
OPEN: MON-SAT 9am - 6.00pm LATE NIGHT: THURSDAY Sam - 8pm If so, which one do you own? 




























Sr LEE 


uu 


ills 
Acrobatic Women 




















lad Giant Ninja - who has a disconcerting habit of 
Dogs. At the end of each level you must suddenly multiplying into an army! 
SPECTRUM AMSTRAD COMMODORE ATARIST - AMIGA 


IMAGINE SOFTWARE - 6 CENTRAL STREET- MANCHESTER M2 5NS 
TEL: 061-832 6633 - TELEX: 669977 QCFANS G - FAX- NEA 824 NASN